2 Kings 18-21

English Standard Version

Hezekiah Reigns in Judah

18 ^(A)In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, ^(B)Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. ²He was ^(C)twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was ^(D)Abi the daughter of Zechariah. ³^(E)And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that David his father had done. ⁴^(F)He removed the high places and broke the ^(G)pillars and cut down ^(H)the Asherah. And he broke in pieces ^(I)the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan).^[a] ⁵^(J)He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel, ^(K)so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him. ⁶^(L)For he held fast to the Lord. He did not depart from following him, but kept the commandments that the Lord commanded Moses. ⁷^(M)And the Lord was with him; wherever he went out, ^(N)he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him. ⁸^(O)He struck down the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory, ^(P)from watchtower to fortified city.

⁹In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, ^(Q)Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it, ¹⁰and at the end of three years he took it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken. ¹¹The king of Assyria carried the Israelites away to Assyria and put them in ^(R)Halah, and on the ^(S)Habor, ^(T)the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes, ¹²because they did not obey the voice of the Lord their God but transgressed his covenant, even all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded. They neither listened nor obeyed.

Sennacherib Attacks Judah

¹³^(U)In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. ¹⁴And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong; withdraw from me. Whatever you impose on me I will bear.” ^(V)And the king of Assyria required of Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents^[b] of silver and thirty talents of gold. ¹⁵And Hezekiah ^(W)gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king's house. ¹⁶At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord and from the doorposts that Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria. ¹⁷And the king of Assyria sent the ^(X)Tartan, the Rab-saris, and the Rabshakeh with a great army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. When they arrived, they came and stood by ^(Y)the conduit of the upper pool, which is on the highway to the Washer's Field. ¹⁸And when they called for the king, there came out to them ^(Z)Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and ^(AA)Shebnah the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder.

¹⁹And the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you rest this trust of yours? ²⁰Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? In whom do you now trust, that you have rebelled against me? ²¹Behold, you are trusting now in Egypt, that broken reed of ^(AB)a staff, which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him. ²²But if you say to me, “We trust in the Lord our God,” is it not he ^(AC)whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, “You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem”? ²³Come now, make a wager with my master the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. ²⁴How then can you repulse a single captain among the least of my master's servants, when you trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? ²⁵Moreover, is it without the Lord that I have come up against this place to destroy it? The Lord said to me, “Go up against this land and destroy it.”’”

²⁶Then ^(AD)Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and ^(AE)Shebnah, and Joah, said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in ^(AF)Aramaic, for we understand it. Do not speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people who are on the wall.” ²⁷But the Rabshakeh said to them, “Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and to drink their own urine?”

²⁸Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in the language of Judah: “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 deliver you out of my^[c] hand. ³⁰Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord by saying, The Lord 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 thus says the king of Assyria: ‘Make your peace with me^[d] and come out to me. Then ^(AG)each one of you will eat of his own vine, and each one of his own fig tree, and each one of you will drink the water of his own cistern, ³²until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, ^(AH)a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and ^(AI)honey, that you may live, and not die. And do not listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you by saying, “The Lord will deliver us.” ³³^(AJ)Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? ³⁴^(AK)Where are the gods of ^(AL)Hamath and ^(AM)Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and ^(AN)Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? ³⁵Who among all the gods of the lands have delivered their lands out of my hand, ^(AO)that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’”

³⁶But the people were silent and answered him not a word, for the king's command was, “Do not answer him.” ³⁷Then ^(AP)Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah ^(AQ)with their clothes torn and told him the words of the Rabshakeh.

Isaiah Reassures Hezekiah

19 ^(AR)As soon as King Hezekiah heard it, ^(AS)he tore his clothes and ^(AT)covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the Lord. ²And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, ^(AU)covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz. ³They said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah, This day is a day of distress, of rebuke, and of disgrace; children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength to bring them forth. ⁴^(AV)It may be that the Lord your God heard all the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent ^(AW)to mock the living God, and will rebuke the words that the Lord your God has heard; therefore lift up your prayer for ^(AX)the remnant that is left.” ⁵When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah, ⁶Isaiah said to them, “Say to your master, ‘Thus says the Lord: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which ^(AY)the servants of the king of Assyria have ^(AZ)reviled me. ⁷Behold, I will put a spirit in him, so that ^(BA)he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will make him ^(BB)fall by the sword in his own land.’”

Sennacherib Defies the Lord

⁸The Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria fighting against ^(BC)Libnah, for he heard that the king had left ^(BD)Lachish. ⁹^(BE)Now the king heard concerning Tirhakah king of Cush, “Behold, he has set out to fight against you.” So he sent messengers again to Hezekiah, saying, ¹⁰“Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God ^(BF)in whom you trust deceive you by promising that ^(BG)Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. ¹¹Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, devoting them to destruction. And shall you be delivered? ¹²^(BH)Have the gods of the nations delivered them, the nations that my fathers destroyed, ^(BI)Gozan, ^(BJ)Haran, Rezeph, and the people of ^(BK)Eden who were in Telassar? ¹³^(BL)Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, the king of Hena, or the king of Ivvah?’”

Hezekiah's Prayer

¹⁴Hezekiah received ^(BM)the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord. ¹⁵And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said: “O Lord, the God of Israel, ^(BN)enthroned above the cherubim, ^(BO)you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. ¹⁶^(BP)Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear; ^(BQ)open your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent ^(BR)to mock the living God. ¹⁷Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands ¹⁸and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, ^(BS)but the work of men's hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed. ¹⁹So now, O Lord our God, save us, please, from his hand, ^(BT)that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that ^(BU)you, O Lord, are God alone.”

Isaiah Prophesies Sennacherib's Fall

²⁰Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Your prayer to me about Sennacherib king of Assyria ^(BV)I have heard. ²¹This is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning him:

“She despises you, she scorns you—
^(BW)the virgin daughter of Zion;
she ^(BX)wags her head behind you—
the daughter of Jerusalem.

²²“Whom have you ^(BY)mocked and ^(BZ)reviled?
    Against whom have you raised your voice
and lifted your eyes to the heights?
    Against ^(CA)the Holy One of Israel!
²³^(CB)By your messengers you have mocked the Lord,
    and you have said, ^(CC)‘With my many chariots
I have gone up the heights of the mountains,
    to the far recesses of ^(CD)Lebanon;
I felled its tallest cedars,
    its choicest cypresses;
I entered its farthest lodging place,
    its most ^(CE)fruitful forest.
²⁴I dug wells
    and drank foreign waters,
and I dried up with the sole of my foot
    all the streams ^(CF)of Egypt.’

²⁵“Have you not heard
    that ^(CG)I determined it long ago?
I planned from days of old
    what ^(CH)now I bring to pass,
that you should turn fortified cities
    into heaps of ruins,
²⁶while their inhabitants, shorn of strength,
    are dismayed and confounded,
and have become ^(CI)like plants of the field
    and like tender grass,
like grass on the housetops,
    blighted before it is grown.

²⁷“But I know your sitting down
    ^(CJ)and your going out and coming in,
    and your raging against me.
²⁸Because you have raged against me
    and your complacency has come into my ears,
I will ^(CK)put my hook in your nose
    and my bit in your mouth,
and ^(CL)I will turn you back on the way
    by which you came.

²⁹“And this shall be ^(CM)the sign for you: this year eat what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs of the same. Then in the third year sow and reap and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. ³⁰^(CN)And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward. ³¹For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion ^(CO)a band of survivors. ^(CP)The zeal of the Lord will do this.

³²“Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there, or come before it with a shield or ^(CQ)cast up a siege mound against it. ³³^(CR)By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares the Lord. ³⁴^(CS)For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake ^(CT)and for the sake of my servant David.”

³⁵And that night ^(CU)the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. ³⁶Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went home and lived at ^(CV)Nineveh. ³⁷And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, ^(CW)Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, struck him down with the sword and escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.

Hezekiah's Illness and Recovery

20 ^(CX)In those days ^(CY)Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, ^(CZ)‘Set your house in order, for you shall die; you shall not recover.’” ²Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, saying, ³“Now, O Lord, ^(DA)please remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and ^(DB)with a whole heart, ^(DC)and have done what is good in your sight.” ^(DD)And Hezekiah wept bitterly. ⁴And before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, the word of the Lord came to him: ⁵“Turn back, and say to Hezekiah ^(DE)the leader of my people, Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father: ^(DF)I have heard your prayer; ^(DG)I have seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the Lord, ⁶and I will add fifteen years to your life. I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, ^(DH)and I will defend this city for my own sake and for my servant David's sake.” ⁷And Isaiah said, “Bring a cake of figs. And let them take and lay it on the boil, that he may recover.”

⁸And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “What shall be the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I shall go up to the house of the Lord on the third day?” ⁹And Isaiah said, “This shall be ^(DI)the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing that he has promised: shall the shadow go forward ten steps, or go back ten steps?” ¹⁰And Hezekiah answered, “It is an easy thing for the shadow ^(DJ)to lengthen ten steps. Rather let the shadow go back ten steps.” ¹¹And Isaiah the prophet called to the Lord, ^(DK)and he brought the shadow back ten steps, by which it had gone down on the steps of Ahaz.

Hezekiah and the Babylonian Envoys

¹²^(DL)At that time ^(DM)Merodach-baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, ^(DN)sent envoys with letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he heard that Hezekiah had been sick. ¹³And Hezekiah welcomed them, and he showed them ^(DO)all his treasure house, the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious oil, his armory, all that was found in his storehouses. There was nothing in his house or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them. ¹⁴Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah, and said to him, “What did these men say? And from where did they come to you?” And Hezekiah said, “They have come from a far country, from Babylon.” ¹⁵He said, “What have they seen in your house?” And Hezekiah answered, “They have seen all that is in my house; there is nothing in my storehouses that I did not show them.”

¹⁶Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord: ¹⁷Behold, the days are coming, when ^(DP)all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord. ¹⁸^(DQ)And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, ^(DR)and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” ¹⁹Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, ^(DS)“The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “Why not, if there will be peace and security in my days?”

²⁰^(DT)The rest of the deeds of Hezekiah and all his might and how he made ^(DU)the pool and the conduit ^(DV)and brought water into the city, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? ²¹^(DW)And Hezekiah slept with his fathers, and Manasseh his son reigned in his place.

Manasseh Reigns in Judah

21 ^(DX)Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hephzibah. ²And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, ^(DY)according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. ³For he rebuilt the high places ^(DZ)that Hezekiah his father had destroyed, and he erected altars for Baal and made ^(EA)an Asherah, ^(EB)as Ahab king of Israel had done, ^(EC)and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them. ⁴^(ED)And he built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, ^(EE)“In Jerusalem will I put my name.” ⁵And he built altars ^(EF)for all the host of heaven in ^(EG)the two courts of the house of the Lord. ⁶^(EH)And he burned his son as an offering^[e] and ^(EI)used fortune-telling and ^(EJ)omens and dealt ^(EK)with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. ⁷And the carved image of ^(EL)Asherah that he had made he set in the house of which the Lord said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house, ^(EM)and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever. ⁸^(EN)And I will not cause the feet of Israel to wander anymore out of the land that I gave to their fathers, if only they will be careful to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the Law that my servant Moses commanded them.” ⁹But they did not listen, and Manasseh led them astray to do more evil than the nations had done whom the Lord destroyed before the people of Israel.

Manasseh's Idolatry Denounced

¹⁰And the Lord said by his servants the prophets, ¹¹^(EO)“Because Manasseh king of Judah has committed these abominations and has done things ^(EP)more evil than all that the Amorites did, who were before him, ^(EQ)and has made Judah also to sin ^(ER)with his idols, ¹²therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing upon Jerusalem and Judah such disaster^[f] that the ears of everyone who hears of it ^(ES)will tingle. ¹³^(ET)And I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria, and the plumb line of the house of Ahab, and I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. ¹⁴And I will forsake the remnant of my heritage and give them into the hand of their enemies, and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies, ¹⁵because they have done what is evil in my sight and have provoked me to anger, since the day their fathers came out of Egypt, even to this day.”

¹⁶^(EU)Moreover, Manasseh shed very much innocent blood, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another, besides the sin ^(EV)that he made Judah to sin so that they did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.

¹⁷^(EW)Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh and all that he did, and the sin that he committed, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? ¹⁸^(EX)And Manasseh slept with his fathers and was buried in the garden of his house, ^(EY)in the garden of Uzza, and Amon his son reigned in his place.

Amon Reigns in Judah

¹⁹Amon was twenty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Meshullemeth the daughter of Haruz of Jotbah. ²⁰And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, ^(EZ)as Manasseh his father had done. ²¹He walked in all the way in which his father walked and served ^(FA)the idols that his father served and worshiped them. ²²^(FB)He abandoned the Lord, the God of his fathers, and did not walk in the way of the Lord. ²³And the servants of Amon conspired against him and put the king to death in his house. ²⁴But the people of the land struck down all those who had conspired against King Amon, and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his place. ²⁵Now the rest of the acts of Amon that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? ²⁶And he was buried in his tomb ^(FC)in the garden of Uzza, and Josiah his son reigned in his place.