1In the third year that Hoshea son of Elah was king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz began to rule as king of Judah.
2He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he ruled in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years. His mother's name was Abi, the daughter of Zechariah.
3He did what was right in Yahweh's eyes, just like his father David had done.
4He removed the pagan shrines, smashed the sacred stones, and cut down the Asherah poles. He also broke into pieces the bronze snake that Moses had made, because the people of Israel were still burning incense to it in those days; he called it Nehushtan.
5He trusted in Yahweh, the God of Israel. There was no king like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him.
6He remained loyal to Yahweh and did not stop following him, but kept the commands that Yahweh had given to Moses.
7Yahweh was with him. Wherever he went, he succeeded. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and refused to serve him.
8He attacked the Philistines all the way to Gaza and its borders, from the watchtowers to the fortified cities.
9In the fourth year of King Hezekiah's reign, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah's reign as king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria marched against Samaria and surrounded it.
10After three years, they captured it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah's reign, which was the ninth year of Hoshea, king of Israel, Samaria was captured.
11The king of Assyria took the people of Israel as captives to Assyria and settled them in Halah, along the Habor River in Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
12This happened because they did not obey Yahweh their God. They broke his covenant and ignored all the commands that Moses, Yahweh's servant, had given them; they would not listen to them or obey them.
13In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah's reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.
14Hezekiah king of Judah sent a message to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, "I have done wrong. Go away from me, and I will pay whatever you demand." So the king of Assyria set the payment for Hezekiah king of Judah at three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.
15Hezekiah gave him all the silver found in Yahweh's temple and in the royal treasury.
16At that time, Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of Yahweh's temple and from the doorposts that Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid with gold, and he gave it to the king of Assyria.
17The king of Assyria sent his chief commander, his chief officer, and his field commander with a large army from Lachish to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem. They marched up and arrived at Jerusalem. When they arrived, they went and stood by the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, which is on the road to the Fuller's Field.
18When they called for the king, Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, Shebnah the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph the royal historian, came out to meet them.
19The field commander said to them, "Tell Hezekiah that this is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: 'What makes you so confident?'
20You say you have military advice and strength, but these are just empty words. In whom are you trusting that you have rebelled against me?
21Look, you are trusting in Egypt, that bruised reed of a staff. If someone leans on it, it will splinter and pierce their hand. That's what Pharaoh, king of Egypt, is like to everyone who trusts in him.
22But if you tell me, 'We trust in Yahweh our God,' isn't he the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, telling Judah and Jerusalem, 'You must worship before this altar in Jerusalem?'
23Now, make a deal with my master, the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses if you can find enough riders for them.
24How then can you defeat even one of my master's lowest-ranking officers? Yet you depend on Egypt for chariots and horsemen!
25Have I come to attack this place to destroy it without Yahweh's approval? Yahweh himself told me, 'Go up against this country and destroy it.'"
26Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebnah, and Joah said to the field commander, "Please speak to us in Aramaic, because we understand it. Don't speak to us in the language of Judah in the hearing of the people on the wall."
27But the field commander said, "Has my master sent me to speak these words only to your master and to you? Hasn't he sent me to the men sitting on the wall, who will have to eat their own waste and drink their own urine with you?"
28Then the field commander stood and shouted in a loud voice in the language of Judah, "Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria!
29This is what the king says: 'Don't let Hezekiah deceive you, because he cannot save you from my power.
30Don't let Hezekiah make you trust in Yahweh by saying, "Yahweh will surely rescue us; this city will not be handed over to the king of Assyria."
31Don't listen to Hezekiah.' For this is what the king of Assyria says: 'Make peace with me and surrender to me. Then each of you will eat from your own vine and fig tree and drink water from your own cistern,
32until 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 trees and honey. You will live there and not die. Don't listen to Hezekiah, because he is trying to trick you by saying, "Yahweh will rescue us."
33Have any of the gods of other nations ever saved their land from the king of Assyria?
34Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Did they save Samaria from my power?
35Which of all the gods of these countries have saved their country from my power, that Yahweh should save Jerusalem from my power?'"
36But the people remained silent and did not say a word in response, because the king had commanded, "Do not answer him."
37Eliakim, Hilkiah's son, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the scribe, and Joah, Asaph's son, the court historian, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him what Rabshakeh had said.