¹And it happened in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, that Hezekiah son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign.

²He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abi, daughter of Zechariah.

³He did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh, according to all that David his father had done.

⁴He removed the high places, broke down the sacred pillars, cut down the Asherah pole, and crushed the bronze snake that Moses had made — for until those days the children of Israel had been making offerings smoke to it — and he called it Nehushtan.

⁵He trusted in Yahweh, the God of Israel; and after him there was not one like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among those who were before him.

⁶He clung to Yahweh; he did not turn aside from following him, and he kept his commandments, which Yahweh had commanded Moses.

⁷And Yahweh was with him; in all that he went out for, he acted wisely. And he rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.

⁸He struck down the Philistines, as far as Gaza and its borders, from the tower of the watchmen to a fortified city.

⁹And it happened in the fourth year of King Hezekiah — which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel — that Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, came up against Samaria and laid siege to it.

¹⁰And they captured it at the end of three years; in the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was captured.

¹¹The king of Assyria took Israel into exile to Assyria, and led them to Halah and to the Habor, the river of Gozan, and to the cities of Media.

¹²Because they did not listen to the voice of Yahweh their God, they passed over his covenant, all that Moses the slave of Yahweh had commanded; they did not listen, and they did not do it.

¹³And in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib, king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and seized them.

¹⁴And Hezekiah, king of Judah, sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, "I have sinned; turn back from me. Whatever you put on me, I will bear." And the king of Assyria put on Hezekiah, king of Judah, three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.

¹⁵And Hezekiah gave all the silver that was found in the house of Yahweh and in the treasuries of the house of the king.

¹⁶At that time Hezekiah cut off the doors of the temple of Yahweh and the doorposts that Hezekiah, king of Judah, had overlaid, and gave them to the king of Assyria.

¹⁷And the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rab-saris, and the Rabshakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah with a heavy army to Jerusalem. They went up and came to Jerusalem; they went up, and came, and stood by the watercourse of the upper pool, which is on the highway of the field of the washer.

¹⁸And they called out to the king, and Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was over the house, went out to them, with Shebna the scribe and Joah son of Asaph the recorder.

¹⁹And the Rabshakeh said to them, "Say, please, to Hezekiah: This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: What is this trust in which you have trusted?

²⁰You have said — only a word of the lips — that there is counsel and strength for war. Now, in whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me?

²¹Now look, you have trusted for yourself in the staff of this crushed reed, in Egypt, on which a man leans, and it goes into his palm and pierces it. Such is Pharaoh, king of Egypt to all who trust in him.

²²And if you say to me, 'In Yahweh our God we trust' — is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, and said to Judah and to Jerusalem, 'Before this altar you will bow down in Jerusalem'?

²³And now, make a bargain, please, with my lord, with the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able to put riders on them for yourself.

²⁴How can you turn back the face of a single governor among the least of the servants of my lord, when you have put your trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

²⁵Now, is it without Yahweh that I have come up against this place to ruin it? Yahweh said to me, 'Go up against this land and ruin it.'"

²⁶And Eliakim son of Hilkiah, and Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, "Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand; and do not speak with us in Judean in the ears of the people who are on the wall."

²⁷But the Rabshakeh said to them, "Is it to your lord and to you that my lord has sent me to speak these words? Is it not to the men who sit on the wall, to eat their own excrement and to drink their own urine with you?"

²⁸And Rabshakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in Judean, and he spoke and said, "Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria.

²⁹Thus says the king: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to snatch you from his hand.

³⁰Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in Yahweh, saying, 'Yahweh will surely deliver us, and this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.'

³¹Do not listen to Hezekiah, for this is what the king of Assyria says: Make a peace treaty with me and come out to me, and let each man eat from his own vine and each from his own fig tree, and let each man drink the water of his own cistern,

³²until I come and take you to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive oil and honey; live and do not die. And do not listen to Hezekiah, for he is enticing you, saying, 'Yahweh will deliver us.'

³³Has any one of the gods of the nations ever delivered his own land from the hand of the king of Assyria?

³⁴Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Have they indeed delivered Samaria from my hand?

³⁵Who among all the gods of the lands has delivered their land from my hand, that Yahweh should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?"

³⁶And the people kept silent and did not answer him a word, for it was the king's command, saying, "Do not answer him."

³⁷And Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was over the house, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their garments torn, and they told him the words of Rabshakeh.