2 Kings 16-20

New American Bible (Revised Edition)

Chapter 16

Reign of Ahaz of Judah.^{[a] 1} In the seventeenth year of Pekah, son of Remaliah, Ahaz, son of Jotham, king of Judah, became king. ² Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem.

He did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord his God, as David his father had done. ³ He walked in the way of the kings of Israel; he even immolated his child by fire, in accordance with the abominable practices of the nations whom the Lord had dispossessed before the Israelites.^{(A) 4} Further, he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, on hills, and under every green tree.^(B)

⁵ Then Rezin, king of Aram, and Pekah, son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to attack it. Although they besieged Ahaz, they were unable to do battle. ⁶ (In those days Rezin, king of Aram, recovered Elath for Aram, and drove the Judahites out of it. The Edomites then entered Elath, which they have occupied until the present.)

⁷ Meanwhile, Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, with the plea: “I am your servant and your son. Come up and rescue me from the power of the king of Aram and the king of Israel, who are attacking me.” ⁸ Ahaz took the silver and gold that were in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king’s house and sent them as a present to the king of Assyria. ⁹ The king of Assyria listened to him and moved against Damascus, captured it, deported its inhabitants to Kir, and put Rezin to death.

¹⁰ King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria. When he saw the altar in Damascus, King Ahaz sent to Uriah the priest a model of the altar and a detailed design of its construction. ¹¹ Uriah the priest built an altar according to the plans which King Ahaz sent him from Damascus, and had it completed by the time King Ahaz returned from Damascus. ¹² On his arrival from Damascus, the king inspected the altar; the king approached the altar, went up ¹³ and sacrificed his burnt offering and grain offering, pouring out his libation, and sprinkling the blood of his communion offerings on the altar. ¹⁴ The bronze altar that stood before the Lord he brought from the front of the temple—that is, from the space between the new altar and the house of the Lord—and set it on the north side of his altar. ^15 (C)King Ahaz commanded Uriah the priest, “Upon the large altar sacrifice the morning burnt offering and the evening grain offering, the king’s burnt offering and grain offering, and the burnt offering and grain offering of the people of the land.^[b] Their libations you must sprinkle on it along with all the blood of burnt offerings and sacrifices. But the old bronze altar shall be mine for consultation.” ¹⁶ Uriah the priest did just as King Ahaz had commanded. ¹⁷ King Ahaz detached the panels from the stands and removed the basins from them; he also took down the bronze sea from the bronze oxen that supported it, and set it on a stone pavement. ¹⁸ In deference to the king of Assyria he removed the sabbath canopy that had been set up in the house of the Lord and the king’s outside entrance^[c] to the temple.

¹⁹ The rest of the acts of Ahaz, with what he did, are recorded in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah. ²⁰ Ahaz rested with his ancestors; he was buried with his ancestors in the City of David, and his son Hezekiah succeeded him as king.

Chapter 17

Reign of Hoshea of Israel. ¹ In the twelfth year of Ahaz, king of Judah, Hoshea, son of Elah, became king in Samaria over Israel for nine years.

² He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, yet not to the extent of the kings of Israel before him. ³ Shalmaneser,^[d] king of Assyria, advanced against him, and Hoshea became his vassal and paid him tribute.^{(D) 4} But the king of Assyria found Hoshea guilty of conspiracy for sending messengers to the king of Egypt at Sais, and for failure to pay the annual tribute to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria arrested and imprisoned him. ⁵ Then the king of Assyria^[e] occupied the whole land and attacked Samaria, which he besieged for three years.

X. The End of Israel^[f]

Israelites Deported. ⁶ In Hoshea’s ninth year, the king of Assyria took Samaria, deported the Israelites to Assyria, and settled them in Halah, and at the Habor, a river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.^{(E) 7} This came about because the Israelites sinned against the Lord, their God, who had brought them up from the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. They venerated other gods, ^8 (F)they followed the rites of the nations whom the Lord had dispossessed before the Israelites and those that the kings of Israel had practiced. ⁹ They adopted unlawful practices toward the Lord, their God. They built high places in all their cities, from guard post to garrisoned town. ¹⁰ They set up pillars and asherahs^[g] for themselves on every high hill and under every green tree. ¹¹ They burned incense there, on all the high places, like the nations whom the Lord had sent into exile at their coming. They did evil things that provoked the Lord, ¹² and served idols, although the Lord had told them: You must not do this.

^13 (G)The Lord warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and seer: Give up your evil ways and keep my commandments and statutes, in accordance with the entire law which I enjoined on your ancestors and which I sent you by my servants the prophets. ¹⁴ But they did not listen. They grew as stiff-necked as their ancestors, who had not believed in the Lord, their God.^{(H) 15} They rejected his statutes, the covenant he had made with their ancestors, and the warnings he had given them. They followed emptiness and became empty; they followed the surrounding nations whom the Lord had commanded them not to imitate.^{(I) 16} They abandoned all the commandments of the Lord, their God: they made for themselves two molten calves; they made an asherah; they bowed down to all the host of heaven; they served Baal.^{(J) 17 (K)}They immolated their sons and daughters by fire. They practiced augury and divination. They surrendered themselves to doing what was evil in the Lord’s sight, and provoked him.

^18 (L)The Lord became enraged, and removed them from his presence. Only the tribe of Judah was left. ¹⁹ Even the people of Judah did not keep the commandments of the Lord, their God, but followed the rites practiced by Israel. ²⁰ So the Lord rejected the entire people of Israel: he afflicted them and delivered them over to plunderers, finally casting them from his presence.^{(M) 21} When he tore Israel away from the house of David, they made Jeroboam, son of Nebat, king; but Jeroboam lured the Israelites away from the Lord, causing them to commit a great sin.^{(N) 22} The Israelites imitated Jeroboam in all the sins he committed; they would not depart from them.

²³ Finally, the Lord removed Israel from his presence, just as he had declared through all his servants, the prophets. Thus Israel went into exile from their native soil to Assyria until this very day.

Foreigners Deported to Israel. ²⁴ The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and settled them in the cities of Samaria in place of the Israelites. They took possession of Samaria and dwelt in its cities. ²⁵ When they first settled there, they did not venerate the Lord, so he sent lions among them that killed some of them. ²⁶ A report reached the king of Assyria: “The nations you deported and settled in the cities of Samaria do not know the proper worship of the god of the land, so he has sent lions among them that are killing them, since they do not know the law of the god of the land.” ²⁷ The king of Assyria gave the order, “Send back some of the priests you deported, to go there and settle, to teach them the proper worship of the god of the land.” ²⁸ So one of the priests who had been deported from Samaria returned and settled in Bethel, and began to teach them how to venerate the Lord.

²⁹ Thus each of these nations continued to make its own gods, setting them up in the shrines of the high places the Samarians had made: each nation in the cities in which they dwelt. ³⁰ The Babylonians made Sukkot-Benot;^[h] the people of Cuth made Nergal; those from Hamath made Ashima; ³¹ those from Avva made Nibhaz and Tartak; and those from Sepharvaim immolated their children by fire to their city gods, King Hadad and King Anu. ³² At the same time, they were venerating the Lord, appointing from their own number priests for the high places to officiate for them in the shrines on the high places. ³³ They were both venerating the Lord and serving their own gods. They followed the custom of the nations from among whom they had been deported.

³⁴ To this very day they continue to act according to their former customs, not venerating the Lord nor observing the statutes and regulations, the law and commandment, that the Lord enjoined on the descendants of Jacob, whom he had named Israel.^{(O) 35} When the Lord made a covenant with them, he commanded them: You must not venerate other gods, nor bow down to them, nor serve them, nor offer sacrifice to them,^{(P) 36} but only to the Lord, who brought you up from the land of Egypt with great power and outstretched arm. Him shall you venerate, to him shall you bow down, and to him shall you offer sacrifice. ³⁷ You must be careful always to observe the statutes and ordinances, the law and commandment, which he wrote for you; you must not venerate other gods. ³⁸ The covenant I made with you, you must not forget; you must not venerate other gods. ³⁹ You must venerate only the Lord, your God; it is he who will deliver you from the power of all your enemies. ⁴⁰ But they did not listen; they continued to act according to their former customs.

⁴¹ But these nations were both venerating the Lord and serving their own idols. Their children and children’s children are still acting like their ancestors, to this very day.

XI. The End of Judah^[i]

Chapter 18

Reign of Hezekiah. ¹ In the third year of Hoshea, son of Elah, king of Israel, Hezekiah, son of Ahaz, king of Judah, became king. ² He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi, daughter of Zechariah.

³ He did what was right in the Lord’s sight, just as David his father had done. ⁴ It was he who removed the high places, shattered the pillars, cut down the asherah,^[j] and smashed the bronze serpent Moses had made, because up to that time the Israelites were burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.)^{(Q) 5} He put his trust in the Lord, the God of Israel; and neither before nor after him was there anyone like him among all the kings of Judah. ⁶ Hezekiah held fast to the Lord and never turned away from following him, but observed the commandments the Lord had given Moses. ⁷ The Lord was with him, and he succeeded in all he set out to do. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him. ⁸ It was he who struck the Philistines as far as Gaza, and all its territory from guard post to garrisoned town.

^9 [k]In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea, son of Elah, king of Israel, Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, attacked Samaria and laid siege to it, ^10 (R)and after three years they captured it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, the ninth year of Hoshea, king of Israel, Samaria was taken. ¹¹ The king of Assyria then deported the Israelites to Assyria and led them off to Halah, and the Habor, a river of Gozan, and the cities of the Medes. ¹² This happened because they did not obey the Lord, their God, but violated his covenant; they did not obey nor do all that Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded.^(S)

Sennacherib and Hezekiah. ^13 [l]In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib, king of Assyria,^[m] attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.^{(T) 14} Hezekiah, king of Judah, sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: “I have done wrong. Leave me, and whatever you impose on me I will bear.” The king of Assyria exacted three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold from Hezekiah, king of Judah. ¹⁵ Hezekiah gave him all the funds there were in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king’s house. ¹⁶ At the same time, Hezekiah removed the nave doors and the uprights of the house of the Lord, which the king of Judah had ordered to be overlaid with gold, and gave them to the king of Assyria.^(U)

¹⁷ The king of Assyria sent the general, the lord chamberlain, and the commander^[n] from Lachish with a great army to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They went up and came to Jerusalem, to the conduit of the upper pool on the highway of the fuller’s field, where they took their stand. ¹⁸ They called for the king, but Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, the master of the palace, came out, along with Shebnah the scribe and the chancellor Joah, son of Asaph.^(V)

¹⁹ The commander said to them, “Tell Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you base this trust of yours? ²⁰ Do you think mere words substitute for strategy and might in war? In whom, then, do you place your trust, that you rebel against me? ²¹ Do you trust in Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which pierces the hand of anyone who leans on it? That is what Pharaoh, king of Egypt, is to all who trust in him.^{(W) 22} Or do you people say to me, “It is in the Lord our God we trust!”? Is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, commanding Judah and Jerusalem, “Worship before this altar in Jerusalem”?’

²³ “Now, make a wager with my lord, the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses if you are able to put riders on them. ²⁴ How then can you turn back even a captain, one of the least servants of my lord, trusting, as you do, in Egypt for chariots and horses? ²⁵ Did I come up to destroy this place without the Lord? The Lord himself said to me: Go up and destroy that land!”

²⁶ Then Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, and Shebnah and Joah said to the commander: “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic; we understand it. Do not speak to us in the language of Judah within earshot of the people who are on the wall.” ²⁷ But the commander replied: “Was it to your lord and to you that my lord sent me to speak these words? Was it not rather to those sitting on the wall, who, with you, will have to eat their own excrement and drink their urine?”^[o]

²⁸ Then the commander stepped forward and cried out in a loud voice in the language of Judah, “Listen to the words of the great king, the king of Assyria. ²⁹ Thus says the king: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he cannot rescue you from my hand. ³⁰ And do not let Hezekiah induce you to trust in the Lord, saying, ‘The Lord will surely rescue us, and this city will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.’ ³¹ Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria: Make peace with me, and surrender to me! Eat, each of you, from your vine, each from your own fig tree. Drink water, each from your own well, ³² until I arrive and take you to a land like your own, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of rich olives and honey. Live, and do not die! And do not listen to Hezekiah when he would incite you by saying, ‘The Lord will rescue us.’ ³³ Has any of the gods of the nations ever rescued his land from the power of the king of Assyria? ³⁴ Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Did they indeed rescue Samaria from my power?^{[p] 35} Which of the gods for all these lands ever rescued his land from my power? Will the Lord then rescue Jerusalem from my power?” ³⁶ But the people remained silent and did not answer at all, for the king’s command was, “Do not answer him.”

³⁷ Then the master of the palace, Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, Shebnah the scribe, and the chancellor Joah, son of Asaph, came to Hezekiah with their garments torn, and reported to him the words of the commander.

Chapter 19

Hezekiah and Isaiah. ¹ When King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his garments, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord. ² He sent Eliakim, the master of the palace, Shebnah the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to tell the prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz, ³ “Thus says Hezekiah:

⁴ Perhaps the Lord, your God, will hear all the words of the commander, whom his lord, the king of Assyria, sent to taunt the living God, and will rebuke him for the words which the Lord, your God, has heard. So lift up a prayer for the remnant that is here.” ⁵ When the servants of King Hezekiah had come to Isaiah, ⁶ he said to them, “Tell this to your lord: Thus says the Lord: Do not be frightened by the words you have heard, by which the deputies of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.^{(X) 7} I am putting in him such a spirit that when he hears a report he will return to his land. I will make him fall by the sword in his land.”

⁸ When the commander, on his return, heard that the king of Assyria had withdrawn from Lachish, he found him besieging Libnah.

Sennacherib, Hezekiah, and Isaiah. ⁹ The king of Assyria heard a report: “Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, has come out to fight against you.” Again he sent messengers to Hezekiah to say: ¹⁰ “Thus shall you say to Hezekiah, king of Judah: Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you by saying, ‘Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.’ ¹¹ You, certainly, have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands: they put them under the ban! And are you to be rescued? ^12 (Y)Did the gods of the nations whom my fathers destroyed deliver them—Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, or the Edenites in Telassar? ¹³ Where are the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, or the kings of the cities Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah?”

¹⁴ Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it; then he went up to the house of the Lord, and spreading it out before the Lord, ¹⁵ Hezekiah prayed in the Lord’s presence: “Lord, God of Israel, enthroned on the cherubim! You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. It is you who made the heavens and the earth.^{(Z) 16} Incline your ear, Lord, and listen! Open your eyes, Lord, and see! Hear the words Sennacherib has sent to taunt the living God. ¹⁷ Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands. ¹⁸ They gave their gods to the fire—they were not gods at all, but the work of human hands—wood and stone, they destroyed them. ¹⁹ Therefore, Lord, our God, save us from this man’s power, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone, Lord, are God.”^(AA)

²⁰ Then Isaiah, son of Amoz, sent this message to Hezekiah: “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to whom you have prayed concerning Sennacherib, king of Assyria: I have listened! ^21 [r]This is the word the Lord has spoken concerning him:

³² “Therefore, thus says the Lord about the king:

³⁵ That night the angel of the Lord went forth and struck down one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. Early the next morning, there they were, dead, all those corpses!^{(AD) 36} So Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, broke camp, departed, returned home, and stayed in Nineveh.

³⁷ When he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword and fled into the land of Ararat. His son Esarhaddon reigned in his place.

Chapter 20

End of Hezekiah’s Reign. ^1 (AE)In those days, when Hezekiah was mortally ill, the prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz, came and said to him: “Thus says the Lord: Put your house in order, for you are about to die; you shall not recover.” ² He turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord: ³ “Ah, Lord, remember how faithfully and wholeheartedly I conducted myself in your presence, doing what was good in your sight!” And Hezekiah wept bitterly. ⁴ Before Isaiah had left the central courtyard, the word of the Lord came to him: ⁵ Go back and tell Hezekiah, the leader of my people: “Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father:

⁷ Then Isaiah said, “Bring a poultice of figs and apply it to the boil for his recovery.” ⁸ Hezekiah asked Isaiah, “What is the sign that the Lord will heal me and that I shall go up to the house of the Lord on the third day?” ⁹ Isaiah replied, “This will be the sign for you from the Lord that he will carry out the word he has spoken: Shall the shadow go forward or back ten steps?” ¹⁰ “It is easy for the shadow to advance ten steps,” Hezekiah answered. “Rather, let it go back ten steps.” ¹¹ So Isaiah the prophet invoked the Lord. He made the shadow go back the ten steps it had descended on the staircase to the terrace of Ahaz.

¹² At that time, Berodach-baladan,^[s] son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and gifts to Hezekiah when he heard that he had been ill. ¹³ Hezekiah listened to the envoys and then showed off his whole treasury: his silver, gold, spices and perfumed oil, his armory, and everything in his storerooms; there was nothing in his house or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them. ¹⁴ Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and asked him: “What did these men say to you? Where did they come from?” Hezekiah replied, “They came from a distant land, from Babylon.” ¹⁵ He asked, “What did they see in your house?” Hezekiah answered, “They saw everything in my house. There is nothing in my storerooms that I did not show them.” ¹⁶ Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah: “Hear the word of the Lord: ¹⁷ The time is coming when all that is in your house, everything that your ancestors have stored up until this day, shall be carried off to Babylon; nothing shall be left, says the Lord. ¹⁸ Some of your own descendants, your offspring, your progeny, shall be taken and made attendants in the palace of the king of Babylon.” ¹⁹ Hezekiah replied to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord which you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “There will be peace and stability in my lifetime.”

²⁰ The rest of the acts of Hezekiah, with all his valor, and how he constructed the pool and conduit^[t] and brought water into the city, are recorded in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah.^{(AF) 21} Hezekiah rested with his ancestors, and his son Manasseh succeeded him as king.