2 Kings 18

In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz king of Judah became king. He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi, daughter of Zechariah. He did what was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his ancestor David had done. He removed the high places, smashed the sacred pillars, and cut down the Asherah pole. He broke in pieces the bronze serpent Moses had made, for until that time the people of Israel had been burning incense to it. He called it Nehushtan. He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either after him or before him. He held fast to the LORD and did not turn away from following him. He kept the commandments the LORD had commanded Moses. The LORD was with him, and he succeeded wherever he went. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him. He struck the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory, from watchtower to fortified city. In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it. They captured it at the end of three years. Samaria was captured in the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel. The king of Assyria carried Israel into exile to Assyria and settled them in Halah, along the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. This was because they had not obeyed the voice of the LORD their God, but had broken his covenant, all that Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded. They neither listened nor obeyed. In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. Hezekiah king of Judah sent word to the king of Assyria at Lachish: “I have done wrong. Withdraw from me, and I will bear whatever you impose on me.” The king of Assyria imposed on Hezekiah king of Judah about eleven tons of silver and about one ton of gold. Hezekiah gave him all the silver found in the house of the LORD and in the treasuries of the king’s palace. At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the LORD’s temple and from the doorposts that Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria. The king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rab-saris, and the Rab-shakeh from Lachish with a large army to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They went up and came to Jerusalem. When they had gone up and arrived, they stood by the conduit of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Washer’s Field. They called for the king, and Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, came out to them, along with Shebna the secretary and Joah son of Asaph the recorder. The Rab-shakeh said to them, “Please tell Hezekiah: This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: What is this confidence on which you rely? You say you have strategy and strength for war, but these are only words. On whom do you now rely, that you have rebelled against me? Look, you are relying on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff. If a man leans on it, it goes into his hand and pierces it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who rely on him. But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the LORD our God,’ is he not the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You shall bow down before this altar in Jerusalem’? Now make a wager with my master, the king of Assyria. I will give you two thousand horses if you can find riders for them. How, then, can you turn back a single governor among the least of my master’s servants, when you rely on Egypt for chariots and horsemen? Have I now come up against this place to destroy it without the LORD? The LORD said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it.’” Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rab-shakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. Do not speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people on the wall.” But the Rab-shakeh said to them, “Has my master sent me to speak these words only to your master and to you? Has he not sent me to the men sitting on the wall, who will have to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine with you?” Then the Rab-shakeh stood and called out loudly in the language of Judah, saying, “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria! This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he cannot deliver you from his hand. Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying, ‘The LORD will surely deliver us, and this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’ Do not listen to Hezekiah, for this is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then each of you may eat from his own vine and fig tree and drink water from his own cistern, until I come and take you to a land like your own, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive oil and honey, so that you may live and not die. Do not listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you by saying, ‘The LORD will deliver us.’ Has any of the gods of the nations delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand? Who among all the gods of these lands has delivered his land from my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?” But the people kept silent and did not answer him a word, for the king had commanded, “Do not answer him.” Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and reported to him the words of the Rab-shakeh.

Rights and attribution