2 Kings 18:4-37 ▼

4 He turned aside the high places, and he shattered the pillars, and he cut down the Asherah pole, and he crushed the bronze serpent that Moses had made. For until those days the sons of Israel were burning incense to it and calling it Nehushtan.

5 He trusted in YHWH, God of Israel, and after him none was like him among all the kings of Judah, nor those who were before him.

6 And he clung to YHWH; he did not depart from after Him, and he kept His commandments that YHWH had commanded Moses.

7 And YHWH was with him; in every place where he went, he prospered. And he rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.

8 He struck the Philistines as far as Gaza and its border, from a tower of watchers to a fortified city.

9 And it came to pass in the fourth year of King Hezekiah—it 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.

10 And they took it at the end of three years. In the sixth year of Hezekiah (it was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel), Samaria was captured.

11 And the king of Assyria carried away Israel to Assyria, and he led them to Halah, and to Habor by the river of Gozan, and to the cities of the Medes,

12 because that they did not obey the voice of YHWH their God, and they transgressed His covenant and all that Moses the servant of YHWH had commanded, and they would not hear nor do it.

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

14 And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong; turn away from me; that which you impose on me I will bear.” And the king of Assyria laid upon Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.

15 And Hezekiah gave him all the silver found in the house of YHWH and in the treasuries of the house of the king.

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

17 And the king of Assyria sent the Tartan and the Rabsaris and the Rabshakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah with a great army against Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. And they went up and came in and stood by the conduit of the upper pool that was on the highway to the Field of the Fuller.

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

19 And the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah: Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: What is this confidence in which you trust?

20 You say: But a word of the lips, counsel and strength for war. And on whom do you trust, that you rebel against me?

21 Now behold, You are trusting for yourself on the staff of this broken reed—on Egypt, on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it. Thus is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.

22 But if you? say to me, ‘In YHWH our God we trust,’ is it not He for whom His high places and His altars Hezekiah has taken away, and he said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You? shall bow low before this altar in Jerusalem’?

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

24 And how will you turn back the face of a captain of one of the least of the servants of my master, and put your trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

25 Now is it without YHWH that I have come up against this place to destroy it? YHWH said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it.’”

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

27 And the Rabshakeh said to them, “And is it for your master, to you only, that my master has sent me to speak these words? Is it not for the men sitting on the wall, who are to eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you??”

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

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

30 And do not let Hezekiah make you? trust in YHWH, saying, ‘YHWH will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’

31 Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria: Make with me a blessing, and come out to me, and eat, each man from his own vine, and each man from his own fig tree, and drink each man the waters of his own cistern,

32 until I come and take you? away 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—that you? may live and not die. Do not listen to Hezekiah, lest he persuade you?, saying, ‘YHWH will deliver us.’

33 Have any gods of the nations ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?

34 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim and Hena and Ivah? Indeed, have they delivered Samaria from my hand?

35 Who among all the gods of the countries have delivered their lands from my hand, that YHWH should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?”

36 And the people kept silent and did not answer him a word, for it was the command from the king, saying, “Do not answer him.”

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