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Chapter 18 Hezekiah King of Judah 1In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign.2He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother's name was AbijahHebrew Abi, a variant of Abijah daughter of Zechariah.3He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, just as his father David had done.4He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was calledOr He called it Nehushtan.Nehushtan sounds like the Hebrew for bronze and snake and unclean thing.)5Hezekiah trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him.6He held fast to the LORD and did not cease to follow him; he kept the commands the LORD had given Moses.7And the LORD was with him; he was successful in whatever he undertook. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.8From watchtower to fortified city, he defeated the Philistines, as far as Gaza and its territory. 9In King Hezekiah's fourth year, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria marched against Samaria and laid siege to it.10At the end of three years the Assyrians took it. So Samaria was captured in Hezekiah's sixth year, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel.11The king of Assyria deported Israel to Assyria and settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River and in towns of the Medes.12This happened because they had not obeyed the LORD their God, but had violated his covenant—all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded. They neither listened to the commands nor carried them out. 13In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah's reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.14So Hezekiah king of Judah sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: “I have done wrong. Withdraw from me, and I will pay whatever you demand of me.” The king of Assyria exacted from Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talentsThat is, about 11 tons (about 10 metric tons) of silver and thirty talentsThat is, about 1 ton (about 1 metric ton) of gold.15So Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the temple of the LORD and in the treasuries of the royal palace. 16Give ear, O LORD, and hear; open your eyes, O LORD, and see; listen to the words Sennacherib has sent to insult the living God.16At this time Hezekiah king of Judah stripped off the gold with which he had covered the doors and doorposts of the temple of the LORD, and gave it to the king of Assyria. Sennacherib Threatens Jerusalem 17The king of Assyria sent his supreme commander, his chief officer and his field commander with a large army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They came up to Jerusalem and stopped at the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Washerman's Field.18They called for the king; and Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went out to them.19The field commander said to them, “Tell Hezekiah: 23“‘Come now, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses—if you can put riders on them!24How can you repulse one officer of the least of my master's officials, even though you are depending on Egypt for chariots and horsemenOr charioteers?25Furthermore, have I come to attack and destroy this place without word from the LORD? The LORD himself told me to march against this country and destroy it.’” 26Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, and Shebna and Joah said to the field commander, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Don't speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall.” 27But the commander replied, “Was it only to your master and you that my master sent me to say these things, and not to the men sitting on the wall—who, like you, will have to eat their own filth and drink their own urine?” 28Then the commander stood and called out in Hebrew: “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria!29This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you. He cannot deliver you from my hand.30Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the LORD when he says, ‘The LORD will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’ 31“Do not listen to Hezekiah. This is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then every one of you will eat from his own vine and fig tree and drink water from his 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. Choose life and not death! 36But the people remained silent and said nothing in reply, because the king had commanded, “Do not answer him.” 37Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went to Hezekiah, with their clothes torn, and told him what the field commander had said. Chapter 19 Jerusalem's Deliverance Foretold 1When King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and went into the temple of the LORD.2He sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary and the leading priests, all wearing sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz.3They told him, “This is what Hezekiah says: This day is a day of distress and rebuke and disgrace, as when children come to the point of birth and there is no strength to deliver them.4It may be that the LORD your God will hear all the words of the field commander, whom his master, the king of Assyria, has sent to ridicule the living God, and that he will rebuke him for the words the LORD your God has heard. Therefore pray for the remnant that still survives.”5When King Hezekiah's officials came to Isaiah,6Isaiah said to them, “Tell your master, ‘This is what the LORD says: Do not be afraid of what you have heard—those words with which the underlings of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.7Listen! I am going to put such a spirit in him that when he hears a certain report, he will return to his own country, and there I will have him cut down with the sword.’” 8When the field commander heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he withdrew and found the king fighting against Libnah. 9Now Sennacherib received a report that Tirhakah, the CushiteThat is, from the upper Nile region king of Egypt, was marching out to fight against him. So he again sent messengers to Hezekiah with this word:10“Say to Hezekiah king of Judah: Do not let the god you depend on deceive you when he says, ‘Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.’11Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries, destroying them completely. And will you be delivered?12Did the gods of the nations that were destroyed by my forefathers deliver them: the gods of Gozan, Haran, Rezeph and the people of Eden who were in Tel Assar?13Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, or of Hena or Ivvah?” Hezekiah's Prayer 14Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the temple of the LORD and spread it out before the LORD.15And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD: “O LORD, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.17“It is true, O LORD, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste these nations and their lands.18They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by men's hands.19Now, O LORD our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O LORD, are God.”
- There are no shared notes for this verse.
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