In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, Ahaz the son of Jotham, the king of Judah, began to reign.

Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. And he did not do what was right in the sight of Jehovah his God, as David his father had done,

But walked in the way of the kings of Israel; and he even caused his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the nations that Jehovah had dispossessed before the children of Israel.

And he sacrificed and burned incense in the high places and on the hills and under every flourishing tree.

Then Rezin the king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah, the king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to battle. And they besieged Ahaz, but they were not able to fight with him.

At that time Rezin the king of Syria restored Elath to Syria and drove the Jews from Elath; and the Syrians came to Elath and have dwelt there to this day.

And Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser the king of Assyria, saying, I am your servant and your son; come up, and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria and out of the hand of the king of Israel, who have risen up against me.

And Ahaz took the silver and the gold that was found in the house of Jehovah and in the treasuries of the king's house, and sent it as a present to the king of Assyria.

And the king of Assyria listened to him. And the king of Assyria went up against Damascus, and he took it and carried the people of it away captive to Kir. And he killed Rezin.

And King Ahaz went to meet Tiglath-pileser the king of Assyria at Damascus, and he saw the altar that was at Damascus. And King Ahaz sent to Urijah the priest the form of the altar and the pattern of it, according to all its workmanship.

And Urijah the priest built an altar according to all that King Ahaz had sent him from Damascus. Urijah the priest made it that way before King Ahaz came from Damascus.

And when the king came from Damascus, the king saw the altar; and the king approached the altar and offered upon it.

And he burned his burnt offering and his meal offering, and poured out his drink offering, and sprinkled the blood of his peace offerings upon the altar.

And the bronze altar which was before Jehovah, he brought forward from the front of the house, from between his altar and the house of Jehovah, and put it by the side of his altar on the north.

And King Ahaz commanded Urijah the priest, saying, Upon the great altar burn the morning burnt offering and the evening meal offering, and the king's burnt offering and his meal offering, and the burnt offering of all the people of the land and their meal offering and their drink offerings; and sprinkle upon it all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of the sacrifice. And the bronze altar shall be for me to inquire by.

And Urijah the priest did according to all that King Ahaz had commanded.

And King Ahaz cut off the panels of the bases and removed the laver from off them; and he took down the sea from off the bronze oxen that were under it and put it upon a pavement of stone.

And the covered way for use on the Sabbath, which they had built in the house, and the king's entry outside, he removed from the house of Jehovah because of the king of Assyria.

And the rest of the acts of Ahaz which he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

And Ahaz slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David; and Hezekiah his son reigned in his place.

In the twelfth year of Ahaz the king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel; he reigned for nine years.

And he did what was evil in the sight of Jehovah, but not like the kings of Israel that had been before him.

Against him Shalmaneser the king of Assyria came up, and Hoshea became his servant and rendered presents to him.

But the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea; for he had sent messengers to So the king of Egypt and did not send up a present to the king of Assyria as he had from year to year. And the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison.

And the king of Assyria invaded the whole land, and he went up against Samaria and besieged it three years.

In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria  ¹took Samaria and carried Israel away into Assyria; and he placed them in Halah and by the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

And this happened because the children of Israel sinned against Jehovah their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and had feared other gods;

And they walked in the statutes of the nations that Jehovah had dispossessed from before the children of Israel and those of the kings of Israel, which they had made.

And the children of Israel secretly did things against Jehovah their God that were not right; and they built high places in all their cities for themselves, from the watchmen's tower to the fortified city.

And they set up for themselves pillars and Asherahs on every high hill and under every flourishing tree;

And there they burned incense in all the high places, as did the nations that Jehovah had carried away from before them, and they did wicked things to provoke Jehovah to anger;

And they served idols, concerning which Jehovah had said to them, You shall not do this thing.

And Jehovah testified against Israel and against Judah through all the  ¹prophets and all the seers, saying, Turn from your evil ways; and keep My commandments and My statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers and which I sent to you through My servants the prophets.

But they would not hear; and they stiffened their necks, which became like the neck of their fathers, who did not believe in Jehovah their God.

And they rejected His statutes and His covenant, which He had made with their fathers, and His testimonies, which He had testified unto them; and they followed vanity and became vain, and went after the nations that were around them, concerning whom Jehovah had charged them not to act like them.

And they forsook all the commandments of Jehovah their God and made for themselves molten images, that is, two calves; and they made an Asherah and worshipped all the host of heaven; and they served Baal.

And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through fire and practiced divination and enchantments; and they sold themselves to do what was evil in the sight of Jehovah, in order to provoke Him to anger.

Therefore Jehovah was very angry with Israel, and He removed them out of His sight; nothing remained except the tribe of Judah.

Judah also did not keep the commandments of Jehovah their God but walked in the statutes of Israel, which they had made.

And Jehovah rejected all the seed of Israel; and He afflicted them and delivered them into the hand of plunderers, until He had cast them out of His sight.

For He tore Israel from the house of David. Now they had made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king, and Jeroboam drove Israel away from following Jehovah and made them commit a great  ¹sin.

And the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they did not depart from them,

Until Jehovah removed Israel from His sight, as He had said through all His servants the prophets. And Israel was carried away from their own land to Assyria; as it is unto this day.

And the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon and from Cuthah and from Avva and from Hamath and from Sepharvaim, and made them dwell in the cities of  ¹Samaria in place of the children of Israel; and they took possession of Samaria and dwelt in its cities.

And when they began dwelling there, they did not fear Jehovah, so Jehovah sent lions among them, which killed some of them.

And they spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, The nations that you have carried away and made to dwell in the cities of Samaria do not know the custom of the God of the land; therefore He has sent lions among them, and now they are killing them because they do not know the custom of the God of the land.

And the king of Assyria gave a command, saying, Take there one of the priests whom you have carried away from there; and let  ¹him go and dwell there, and let him teach them the custom of the God of the land.

Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel, and he taught them how to fear Jehovah.

And every nation made gods of their own and put them in the houses of the high places that the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities in which they dwelt.

And the people of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, and the people of Cuth made Nergal, and the people of Hamath made Ashima,

And the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; and the Sepharvites burned their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.

So they feared Jehovah; and they made for themselves from all their classes priests for the high places, who offered sacrifices for them in the houses of the high places.

They feared Jehovah but served their own gods after the custom of the nations, from which they had been carried away.

Unto this day they have done according to their former customs: They do not fear Jehovah; nor do they act according to their statutes and their ordinances, nor according to the law and commandment that Jehovah commanded the sons of Jacob, whom He named Israel.

And Jehovah had made a covenant with them and commanded them, saying, You shall not fear other gods, nor bow down to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them.

But Jehovah alone, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm, Him shall you fear, and Him shall you worship, and to Him shall you sacrifice.

And the statutes and the ordinances and the law and the commandment which He wrote out for you, you shall be certain to do forever; and you shall not fear other gods.

And you shall not forget the covenant that I have made with you, neither shall you fear other gods;

But you shall fear Jehovah your God, and He will deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies.

But they did not listen but acted according to their former customs.

So these nations feared Jehovah but served their graven images, as well as their children and their children's children; as their fathers had done, so they have done unto this day.

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

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

And he did what was right in the sight of Jehovah, according to all that David his father had done.

He removed the high places and broke down the pillars and cut down the Asherah and broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the children of Israel had burned incense to it; and he called it  ¹Nehushtan.

He trusted in Jehovah the God of Israel, so that after him there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any among those who were before him.

And he clung to Jehovah; he did not turn away from following after Him but kept His commandments, which Jehovah commanded Moses.

And Jehovah was with him; everywhere he went, he prospered. And he rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him.

He struck the Philistines as far as Gaza and its borders, from the watchmen's tower to the fortified city.

And in the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea the son of Elah, the king of Israel, Shalmaneser the king of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it.

And at the end of three years they took it; in the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is, the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Israel, Samaria was taken.

And the king of Assyria carried Israel away captive to Assyria and settled them in Halah and by the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes;

For they would not listen to the voice of Jehovah their God but transgressed His covenant, that is, all that Moses the servant of Jehovah had commanded; and they would not listen to it nor do it.

 ¹And in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib the king of Assyria went up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.

And Hezekiah the king of Judah sent word to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, I have sinned; withdraw from me. I will bear whatever you impose upon me. And the king of Assyria imposed upon Hezekiah the king of Judah a levy of three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.

And Hezekiah gave all the silver that was found in the house of Jehovah and in the treasuries of the king's house.

At that time Hezekiah stripped the doors of the temple of Jehovah and the posts that Hezekiah the king of Judah had overlaid, and he gave them to the king of Assyria.

And the king of Assyria sent the Tartan and the Rab-saris and the Rab-shakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah with a great force. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. And when they came up, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is on the road to the Fuller's Field.

And they called out to the king. And Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebnah the scribe and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came out to them.

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

You say (but it is a vain word), There is counsel and strength for war. Now in whom do you trust, that you rebel against me?

You now have put your trust in the staff of this broken reed, in Egypt, in that which, if a man should lean on it, it will go into his hand and pierce it; so is Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, to all who trust in him.

And if you say to me, We trust in Jehovah our God; is it not He whose high places and altars Hezekiah has taken away and has said to Judah and Jerusalem, You shall worship only before this altar in Jerusalem?

Now therefore give pledges to my master, the king of Assyria; and I will give you two thousand horses, if indeed you are able to set the riders on them.

How then can you refuse one official of the least of my master's servants and put your trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen?

Have I now come up apart from Jehovah against this place to destroy it? Jehovah said to me, Go up against this land and destroy it.

And Eliakim the son of Hilkiah and Shebnah and Joah said to the Rab-shakeh, Please speak to your servants in  ¹Aramaic, because we understand it; and do not speak with us in the  ²Jews' language in the hearing of the people who are upon the wall.

But the Rab-shakeh said to them, Has my master sent me only to your master and to you to speak these words, and not to the men who sit on the wall, that they may eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?

And the Rab-shakeh stood and cried with a loud voice in the Jews' language and spoke and said, Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria:

Thus says the king, Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, because he is not able to deliver you out of  ¹my hand.

Neither let Hezekiah cause you to trust in Jehovah, saying, Jehovah will surely deliver us, and this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.

Do not listen to Hezekiah; for thus says the king of Assyria, Make  ¹your peace with me, and come out to me; and let each eat from his own vine and each from his own fig tree, and let each drink the waters of his own cistern,

Until I come and take you away to a land like your land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey, that you may live and not die. So do not listen to Hezekiah when he tries to persuade you, saying, Jehovah will deliver us.

Have any of the gods of the nations delivered at all their land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?

Where are the gods of Hamath and of Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? And have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?

Who among all the gods of these lands have delivered their land out of my hand, that Jehovah should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?

But the people were silent and did not answer him a word, because of the commandment of the king that said, You shall not answer him.

Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him the words of the Rab-shakeh.