2 Kings 18

²⁷And Ahaz rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of Jerusalem, but he was not placed in the tombs of the kings of Israel. And his son Hezekiah reigned in his place.

¹³Ahaz his son, Hezekiah his son, Manasseh his son,

⁹Uzziah was the father of Jotham, Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah.

¹⁰Hezekiah was the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amon, Amon the father of Josiah,

²⁰And Ahaz rested with his fathers and was buried with them in the City of David, and his son Hezekiah reigned in his place.

³⁰Then Hoshea son of Elah led a conspiracy against Pekah son of Remaliah. In the twentieth year of Jotham son of Uzziah, Hoshea attacked Pekah, killed him, and reigned in his place.

⁹In the fourth year of Hezekiah’s reign, which was the seventh year of the reign of Hoshea son of Elah over Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria marched against Samaria and besieged it.

¹Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah.

²And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done.

³“Please, O Lord, remember how I have walked before You faithfully and with wholehearted devotion; I have done what is good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

²And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and walked in all the ways of his father David; he did not turn aside to the right or to the left.

¹¹And Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father David had done.

¹⁸Do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, so that it may be well with you and that you may enter and possess the good land that the Lord your God swore to give your fathers,

²⁷Then he sings before men with these words: ‘I have sinned and perverted what was right; yet I did not get what I deserved.

²⁰So this is what Hezekiah did throughout Judah. He did what was good and upright and true before the Lord his God.

²¹He acted with all his heart in every work that he began in the service of the house of God, and in the law and the commandments, in order to seek his God. And so he prospered.

¹When all this had ended, the Israelites in attendance went out to the cities of Judah and broke up the sacred pillars, chopped down the Asherah poles, and tore down the high places and altars throughout Judah and Benjamin, as well as in Ephraim and Manasseh, until they had utterly destroyed them all. Then all the Israelites returned to their cities, each to his own property.

⁸Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and mount it on a pole. When anyone who is bitten looks at it, he will live.”

⁹So Moses made a bronze snake and mounted it on a pole. If anyone who was bitten looked at the bronze snake, he would live.

²²But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God,’ is He not the One whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem: ‘You must worship before this altar in Jerusalem’?

²⁸When the men of the city got up in the morning, there was Baal’s altar torn down, with the Asherah pole cut down beside it and the second bull offered up on the newly built altar.

¹²He banished the male shrine prostitutes from the land and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.

¹³He also removed his grandmother Maacah from her position as queen mother because she had made a detestable Asherah pole. Asa chopped down the pole and burned it in the Kidron Valley.

²⁴You must not bow down to their gods or serve them or follow their practices. Instead, you are to demolish them and smash their sacred stones to pieces.

²⁵Neither before nor after Josiah was there any king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, according to all the Law of Moses.

¹⁰“Give this message to Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you by saying that Jerusalem will not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.

⁴³He trusts in God. Let God deliver Him now if He wants Him. For He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”

¹²in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, would be for the praise of His glory.

¹²O Lord of Hosts, how blessed is the man who trusts in You!

¹Of David. The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—whom shall I dread?

²When the wicked came upon me to devour my flesh, my enemies and foes stumbled and fell.

²⁰You are to fear the Lord your God and serve Him. Hold fast to Him and take your oaths in His name.

⁸Instead, you shall hold fast to the Lord your God, as you have done to this day.

¹⁵If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.

²³When he arrived and saw the grace of God, he rejoiced and encouraged them all to abide in the Lord with all their hearts.

¹⁴You are My friends if you do what I command you.

³For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome,

²And the Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man, serving in the household of his Egyptian master.

³When his master saw that the Lord was with him and made him prosper in all he did,

³¹What then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

¹²With God we will perform with valor, and He will trample our enemies.

⁷So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and save me from the hands of the kings of Aram and Israel, who are rising up against me.”

²⁰and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

³He is like a tree planted by streams of water, yielding its fruit in season, whose leaf does not wither, and who prospers in all he does.

⁹The Israelites secretly did things against the Lord their God that were not right. From watchtower to fortified city, they built high places in all their cities.

²⁹Do not rejoice, all you Philistines, that the rod that struck you is broken. For a viper will spring from the root of the snake, and a flying serpent from its egg.

¹⁸The Philistines had also raided the cities of the foothills and the Negev of Judah, capturing and occupying Beth-shemesh, Aijalon, and Gederoth, as well as Soco, Timnah, and Gimzo with their villages.

⁴¹These who were noted by name came in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah. They attacked the Hamites in their dwellings as well as the Meunites who were there, devoting them to destruction even to this day. Then they settled in their place, because there was pasture for their flocks.

¹⁰Since he had much livestock in the foothills and in the plain, he built towers in the desert and dug many cisterns. And since he was a lover of the soil, he had farmers and vinedressers in the hill country and in the fertile fields.

²He dug it up and cleared the stones and planted the finest vines. He built a watchtower in the middle and dug out a winepress as well. He waited for the vineyard to yield good grapes, but the fruit it produced was sour!

¹⁴the roar of battle will rise against your people, so that all your fortresses will be demolished as Shalman devastated Beth-arbel in the day of battle, when mothers were dashed to pieces along with their children.

¹In the third year of the reign of Hoshea son of Elah over Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz became king of Judah.

³Shalmaneser king of Assyria attacked him, and Hoshea became his vassal and paid him tribute.

⁴But the king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea had conspired to send envoys to King So of Egypt, and that he had not paid tribute to the king of Assyria as in previous years. Therefore the king of Assyria arrested Hoshea and put him in prison.

⁷Therefore, you will now go into exile as the first of the captives, and your feasting and lounging will come to an end.

¹⁶You have kept the statutes of Omri and all the practices of Ahab’s house; you have followed their counsel. Therefore I will make you a desolation, and your inhabitants an object of contempt; you will bear the scorn of the nations.”

⁶Therefore I will make Samaria a heap of rubble in the open field, a planting area for a vineyard. I will pour her stones into the valley and expose her foundations.

⁷All her carved images will be smashed to pieces; all her wages will be burned in the fire, and I will destroy all her idols. Since she collected the wages of a prostitute, they will be used again on a prostitute.

¹¹Therefore this is what the Lord God says: “An enemy will surround the land; he will pull down your strongholds and plunder your citadels.”

¹I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and He said: “Strike the tops of the pillars so that the thresholds shake. Topple them on the heads of all the people, and I will kill the rest with the sword. None of those who flee will get away; none of the fugitives will escape.

²Though they dig down to Sheol, from there My hand will take them; and though they climb up to heaven, from there I will pull them down.

¹³Then the earth will become desolate because of its inhabitants, as the fruit of their deeds.

²⁶So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria (that is, Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria) to take the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh into exile. And he brought them to Halah, Habor, Hara, and the river of Gozan, where they remain to this day.

⁶In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and carried away the Israelites to Assyria, where he settled them in Halah, in Gozan by the Habor River, and in the cities of the Medes.

¹²Did the gods of the nations destroyed by my fathers rescue those nations—the gods of Gozan, Haran, and Rezeph, and of the people of Eden in Telassar?

⁸For the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin. Within sixty-five years Ephraim will be shattered as a people.

³They will not remain in the land of the Lord; Ephraim will return to Egypt and eat unclean food in Assyria.

⁵Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger; the staff in their hands is My wrath.

¹⁷Fools, in their rebellious ways, and through their iniquities, suffered affliction.

²⁶But they were disobedient and rebelled against You; they flung Your law behind their backs. They killed Your prophets, who had admonished them to return to You. They committed terrible blasphemies.

²⁷So You delivered them into the hands of enemies who oppressed them, and in their time of distress they cried out to You. From heaven You heard them, and in Your great compassion You gave them deliverers who saved them from the hands of their enemies.

²³but this is what I commanded them: Obey Me, and I will be your God, and you will be My people. You must walk in all the ways I have commanded you, so that it may go well with you.

¹⁷They refused to listen and failed to remember the wonders You performed among them. They stiffened their necks and appointed a leader to return them to their bondage in Egypt. But You are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in loving devotion, and You did not forsake them.

⁴Then they will cry out to the Lord, but He will not answer them. At that time He will hide His face from them because of the evil they have done.

⁷All this happened because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They had worshiped other gods

⁸and walked in the customs of the nations that the Lord had driven out before the Israelites, as well as in the practices introduced by the kings of Israel.

¹In the fourteenth year of Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked and captured all the fortified cities of Judah.

²And the king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh, with a great army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. And he stopped by the aqueduct of the upper pool, on the road to the Launderer’s Field.

¹Ephraim feeds on the wind and pursues the east wind all day long; he multiplies lies and violence; he makes a covenant with Assyria and sends olive oil to Egypt.

²The Lord has a charge to bring against Judah. He will punish Jacob according to his ways and repay him according to his deeds.

¹⁷The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since the day Ephraim separated from Judah—He will bring the king of Assyria.”

¹⁸On that day the Lord will whistle to the flies at the farthest streams of the Nile and to the bees in the land of Assyria.

¹After all these acts of faithfulness, Sennacherib king of Assyria came and invaded Judah. He laid siege to the fortified cities, intending to conquer them for himself.

²When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come to make war against Jerusalem,

⁵Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger; the staff in their hands is My wrath.

⁷the Lord will surely bring against them the mighty floodwaters of the Euphrates—the king of Assyria and all his pomp. It will overflow its channels and overrun its banks.

⁸It will pour into Judah, swirling and sweeping over it, reaching up to the neck; its spreading streams will cover your entire land, O Immanuel!

⁷And the Lord was with Hezekiah, and he prospered wherever he went. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and refused to serve him.

²⁵The fear of man is a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is set securely on high.

³²And if he is unable, he will send a delegation while the other king is still far off, to ask for terms of peace.

⁴And the king of Israel replied, “Just as you say, my lord the king: I am yours, along with all that I have.”

⁸Ahaz also took the silver and gold found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king’s palace, and he sent it as a gift to the king of Assyria.

¹⁸So Asa withdrew all the silver and gold that remained in the treasuries of the house of the Lord and the royal palace. He entrusted it to his servants and sent them with this message to Ben-hadad son of Tabrimmon, the son of Hezion, the king of Aram, who was ruling in Damascus:

¹⁹“Let there be a treaty between me and you as there was between my father and your father. See, I have sent you a gift of silver and gold. Now go and break your treaty with Baasha king of Israel, so that he will withdraw from me.”

¹⁸So King Joash of Judah took all the sacred objects dedicated by his fathers—Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, the kings of Judah—along with his own consecrated items and all the gold found in the treasuries of the house of the Lord and the royal palace, and he sent them to Hazael king of Aram. So Hazael withdrew from Jerusalem.

²So Asa withdrew the silver and gold from the treasuries of the house of the Lord and the royal palace, and he sent it with this message to Ben-hadad king of Aram, who was ruling in Damascus:

¹⁵And he brought into the house of the Lord the silver and gold and the articles that he and his father had dedicated.

³In the first month of the first year of his reign, Hezekiah opened and repaired the doors of the house of the Lord.

³¹For the entrance to the inner sanctuary, Solomon constructed doors of olive wood with five-sided doorposts.

³²The double doors were made of olive wood, and he carved into them cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers and overlaid the cherubim and palm trees with hammered gold.

³Then the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out with your son Shear-jashub to meet Ahaz at the end of the aqueduct that feeds the upper pool, on the road to the Launderer’s Field,

²⁰As for the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, along with all his might and how he constructed the pool and the tunnel to bring water into the city, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

¹Before the year that the chief commander, sent by Sargon king of Assyria, came to Ashdod and attacked and captured it,

²And the king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh, with a great army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. And he stopped by the aqueduct of the upper pool, on the road to the Launderer’s Field.

⁹You saw that there were many breaches in the walls of the City of David. You collected water from the lower pool.

¹⁰You counted the houses of Jerusalem and tore them down to strengthen the wall.

⁹Later, as Sennacherib king of Assyria and all his forces besieged Lachish, he sent his servants to Jerusalem with a message for King Hezekiah of Judah and all the people of Judah who were in Jerusalem:

²And he sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the scribe, and the leading priests, all wearing sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz

¹⁵This is what the Lord God of Hosts says: “Go, say to Shebna, the steward in charge of the palace:

¹⁶What are you doing here, and who authorized you to carve out a tomb for yourself here—to chisel your tomb in the height and cut your resting place in the rock?

⁸Now in the eighteenth year of his reign, in order to cleanse the land and the temple, Josiah sent Shaphan son of Azaliah, Maaseiah the governor of the city, and Joah son of Joahaz, the recorder, to repair the house of the Lord his God.

³Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder, went out to him.

²⁴Adoram was in charge of the forced labor; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was the recorder;

²²Then Hilkiah’s son Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the scribe, and Asaph’s son Joah the recorder came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and they relayed to him the words of the Rabshakeh.

⁴The Rabshakeh said to them, “Tell Hezekiah that this is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: What is the basis of this confidence of yours?

⁸“Are not all my commanders kings?” he says.

⁹“Is not Calno like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad? Is not Samaria like Damascus?

¹⁰“Give this message to Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you by saying that Jerusalem will not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.

²⁹This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you; he cannot deliver you from my hand.

³⁰Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the Lord when he says, ‘The Lord will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’

¹⁰“This is what Sennacherib king of Assyria says: What is the basis of your confidence, that you remain in Jerusalem under siege?

¹¹Is not Hezekiah misleading you to give you over to death by famine and thirst when he says, ‘The Lord our God will deliver us from the hand of the king of Assyria?’

¹⁴Who among all the gods of these nations that my fathers devoted to destruction has been able to deliver his people from my hand? How then can your God deliver you from my hand?

¹⁵So now, do not let Hezekiah deceive you, and do not let him mislead you like this. Do not believe him, for no god of any nation or kingdom has been able to deliver his people from my hand or from the hand of my fathers. How much less will your God deliver you from my hand!”

³⁰There is no wisdom, no understanding, no counsel that can prevail against the Lord.

³¹A horse is prepared for the day of battle, but victory is of the Lord.

⁷Egypt’s help is futile and empty; therefore I have called her Rahab Who Sits Still.

⁶Then all the people of Egypt will know that I am the Lord. For you were only a staff of reeds to the house of Israel.

⁷When Israel took hold of you with their hands, you splintered, tearing all their shoulders; when they leaned on you, you broke, and their backs were wrenched.

²They set out to go down to Egypt without asking My advice, to seek shelter under Pharaoh’s protection and take refuge in Egypt’s shade.

³But Pharaoh’s protection will become your shame, and the refuge of Egypt’s shade your disgrace.

⁴But the king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea had conspired to send envoys to King So of Egypt, and that he had not paid tribute to the king of Assyria as in previous years. Therefore the king of Assyria arrested Hoshea and put him in prison.

⁶Look now, you are trusting in Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff that will pierce the hand of anyone who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.

¹Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in their abundance of chariots and in their multitude of horsemen. They do not look to the Holy One of Israel; they do not seek the Lord.

²Yet He too is wise and brings disaster; He does not call back His words. He will rise up against the house of the wicked and against the allies of evildoers.

¹When all this had ended, the Israelites in attendance went out to the cities of Judah and broke up the sacred pillars, chopped down the Asherah poles, and tore down the high places and altars throughout Judah and Benjamin, as well as in Ephraim and Manasseh, until they had utterly destroyed them all. Then all the Israelites returned to their cities, each to his own property.

¹⁵Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes, and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the statue I have made, very good. But if you refuse to worship, you will be thrown at once into the blazing fiery furnace. Then what god will be able to deliver you from my hands?”

⁷But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God,’ is He not the One whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You must worship before this altar’?

¹²Did not Hezekiah himself remove His high places and His altars and say to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You must worship before one altar, and on it you shall burn sacrifices’?

⁴He removed the high places, shattered the sacred pillars, and cut down the Asherah poles. He also demolished the bronze snake called Nehushtan that Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had burned incense to it.

⁵Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. No king of Judah was like him, either before him or after him.

¹⁵The spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is not subject to anyone’s judgment.

¹⁰Then Ben-hadad sent another message to Ahab: “May the gods deal with me, and ever so severely, if enough dust remains of Samaria for each of my men to have a handful.”

¹⁸“If they have marched out in peace,” he said, “take them alive. Even if they have marched out for war, take them alive.”

⁸Now, therefore, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria. I will give you two thousand horses—if you can put riders on them!

⁹For how can you repel a single officer among the least of my master’s servants when you depend on Egypt for chariots and horsemen?

¹³For he says: ‘By the strength of my hand I have done this, and by my wisdom, for I am clever. I have removed the boundaries of nations and plundered their treasures; like a mighty one I subdued their rulers.

¹⁴My hand reached as into a nest to seize the wealth of the nations. Like one gathering abandoned eggs, I gathered all the earth. No wing fluttered, no beak opened or chirped.’”

⁴⁴“Come here,” he called to David, “and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!”

²before his associates and the army of Samaria, saying, “What are these feeble Jews doing? Can they restore the wall by themselves? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they complete it in a day? Can they bring these burnt stones back to life from the mounds of rubble?”

³Then Tobiah the Ammonite, who was beside him, said, “If even a fox were to climb up on what they are building, it would break down their wall of stones!”

⁸“Are not all my commanders kings?” he says.

³⁷You, O king, are the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given sovereignty, power, strength, and glory.

³⁸Wherever the sons of men or beasts of the field or birds of the air dwell, He has given them into your hand and has made you ruler over them all. You are that head of gold.

⁹For how can you repel a single officer among the least of my master’s servants when you depend on Egypt for chariots and horsemen?

¹⁶But the king must not acquire many horses for himself or send the people back to Egypt to acquire more horses, for the Lord has said, ‘You are never to go back that way again.’

⁷“This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says that you are to tell the king of Judah, who sent you to Me: Behold, Pharaoh’s army, which has marched out to help you, will go back to its own land of Egypt.

²²you, O king, are that tree! For you have become great and strong; your greatness has grown to reach the sky, and your dominion extends to the ends of the earth.

⁶who replied, “Tell your master that this is what the Lord says: ‘Do not be afraid of the words you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me.

²²Whom have you taunted and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel!

²³Through your servants you have taunted the Lord, and you have said: “With my many chariots I have ascended to the heights of the mountains, to the remote peaks of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars, the finest of its cypresses. I have reached its farthest outposts, the densest of its forests.

⁶If a ram’s horn sounds in a city, do the people not tremble? If calamity comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it?

²¹But Neco sent messengers to him, saying, “What is the issue between you and me, O king of Judah? I have not come against you today, but I am fighting another dynasty, and God has told me to hurry. So stop opposing God, who is with me, or He will destroy you!”

¹⁰So Pilate said to Him, “Do You refuse to speak to me? Do You not know that I have authority to release You and authority to crucify You?”

¹¹Jesus answered, “You would have no authority over Me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed Me over to you is guilty of greater sin.”

¹⁸Then the prophet replied, “I too am a prophet like you, and an angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord, saying, ‘Bring him back with you to your house, so that he may eat bread and drink water.’” The old prophet was lying to him,

⁷And in the days of Artaxerxes king of Persia, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of his associates wrote a letter to Artaxerxes. It was written in Aramaic and then translated.

⁴Then the astrologers answered the king in Aramaic, “O king, may you live forever! Tell your servants the dream, and we will give the interpretation.”

¹¹Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Do not speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall.”

¹²But the Rabshakeh replied, “Has my master sent me to speak these words only to you and your master, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are destined with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?”

¹⁸Then they called for the king. And Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebnah the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder, went out to them.

²⁵So there was a great famine in Samaria. Indeed, they besieged the city so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter cab of dove’s dung sold for five shekels of silver.

¹⁵“Look,” He replied, “I will let you use cow dung instead of human excrement, and you may bake your bread over that.”

⁸They mock and speak with malice; with arrogance they threaten oppression.

⁵³Then you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters whom the Lord your God has given you, in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you.

⁵⁴The most gentle and refined man among you will begrudge his brother, the wife he embraces, and the rest of his children who have survived,

⁵Those who once ate delicacies are destitute in the streets; those brought up in crimson huddle in ash heaps.

¹³Then the Lord said, “This is how the Israelites will eat their defiled bread among the nations to which I will banish them.”

¹³Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out loudly in Hebrew: “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria!

¹⁴This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he cannot deliver you.

¹⁸Then the Assyrians called out loudly in Hebrew to the people of Jerusalem who were on the wall, to frighten and terrify them in order to capture the city.

³Speak to him and tell him that this is what the Lord God says: Behold, I am against you, O Pharaoh king of Egypt, O great monster who lies among his rivers, who says, ‘The Nile is mine; I made it myself.’

⁸“Are not all my commanders kings?” he says.

⁹“Is not Calno like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad? Is not Samaria like Damascus?

¹²Artaxerxes, king of kings. To Ezra the priest, the scribe of the Law of the God of heaven: Greetings.

⁶And I heard a sound like the roar of a great multitude, like the rushing of many waters, and like a mighty rumbling of thunder, crying out: “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.

¹⁵So now, do not let Hezekiah deceive you, and do not let him mislead you like this. Do not believe him, for no god of any nation or kingdom has been able to deliver his people from my hand or from the hand of my fathers. How much less will your God deliver you from my hand!”

¹¹Is not Hezekiah misleading you to give you over to death by famine and thirst when he says, ‘The Lord our God will deliver us from the hand of the king of Assyria?’

¹⁰So Pilate said to Him, “Do You refuse to speak to me? Do You not know that I have authority to release You and authority to crucify You?”

¹¹Jesus answered, “You would have no authority over Me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed Me over to you is guilty of greater sin.”

¹⁵Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes, and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the statue I have made, very good. But if you refuse to worship, you will be thrown at once into the blazing fiery furnace. Then what god will be able to deliver you from my hands?”

¹⁶Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter.

⁴He will oppose and exalt himself above every so-called god or object of worship. So he will seat himself in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.

¹⁶So the king gave the order, and they brought Daniel and threw him into the den of lions. The king said to Daniel, “May your God, whom you serve continually, deliver you!”

⁴³He trusts in God. Let God deliver Him now if He wants Him. For He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”

¹⁰“Give this message to Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you by saying that Jerusalem will not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.

³⁵The people stood watching, and the rulers sneered at Him, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself if He is the Christ of God, the Chosen One.”

²How long, O men, will my honor be maligned? How long will you love vanity and seek after lies? Selah

⁷All who see me mock me; they sneer and shake their heads:

⁸“He trusts in the Lord, let the Lord deliver him; let the Lord rescue him, since He delights in him.”

⁹Do not discard me in my old age; do not forsake me when my strength fails.

²⁵Throughout the days of Solomon, Judah and Israel dwelt securely from Dan to Beersheba, each man under his own vine and his own fig tree.

²⁰The people of Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand on the seashore, and they were eating and drinking and rejoicing.

¹⁰On that day, declares the Lord of Hosts, you will each invite your neighbor to sit under your own vine and fig tree.’”

¹⁶A man’s gift opens doors for him, and brings him before great men.

²⁰You are also to say, ‘Look, your servant Jacob is right behind us.’” For he thought, “I will appease Esau with the gift that is going before me. After that I can face him, and perhaps he will accept me.”

¹¹Please accept my gift that was brought to you, because God has been gracious to me and I have all I need.” So Jacob pressed him until he accepted.

⁷For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks and fountains and springs that flow through the valleys and hills;

⁸a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey;

⁸I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

¹²It is a land for which the Lord your God cares; the eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning to the end of the year.

²³Finally, the Lord removed Israel from His presence, as He had declared through all His servants the prophets. So Israel was exiled from their homeland into Assyria, where they are to this day.

²⁶and they went back to Moses, Aaron, and the whole congregation of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. They brought back a report for the whole congregation and showed them the fruit of the land.

²⁷And they gave this account to Moses: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and indeed, it is flowing with milk and honey. Here is some of its fruit!

⁸If the Lord delights in us, He will bring us into this land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and He will give it to us.

¹⁰As my hand seized the idolatrous kingdoms whose images surpassed those of Jerusalem and Samaria,

¹¹and as I have done to Samaria and its idols, will I not also do to Jerusalem and her idols?”

¹⁴Who among all the gods of these nations that my fathers devoted to destruction has been able to deliver his people from my hand? How then can your God deliver you from my hand?

¹⁵So now, do not let Hezekiah deceive you, and do not let him mislead you like this. Do not believe him, for no god of any nation or kingdom has been able to deliver his people from my hand or from the hand of my fathers. How much less will your God deliver you from my hand!”

¹⁷Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste these nations and their lands.

¹⁸They have cast their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods, but only wood and stone—the work of human hands.

¹⁹They spoke against the God of Jerusalem as they had spoken against the gods of the peoples of the earth—the work of human hands.

¹⁸Do not let Hezekiah mislead you when he says, ‘The Lord will deliver us.’ Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?

¹⁹Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand?

¹²Did the gods of the nations destroyed by my fathers rescue those nations—the gods of Gozan, Haran, and Rezeph, and of the people of Eden in Telassar?

¹³Where are the kings of Hamath, Arpad, Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?’”

⁹“Is not Calno like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad? Is not Samaria like Damascus?

²³Concerning Damascus: “Hamath and Arpad are put to shame, for they have heard a bad report; they are agitated like the sea; their anxiety cannot be calmed.

¹⁸Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all these countries and their lands.

¹⁹They have cast their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods, but only wood and stone—the work of human hands.

²¹So they went up and spied out the land from the Wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob, toward Lebo-hamath.

⁶In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and carried away the Israelites to Assyria, where he settled them in Halah, in Gozan by the Habor River, and in the cities of the Medes.

²³Finally, the Lord removed Israel from His presence, as He had declared through all His servants the prophets. So Israel was exiled from their homeland into Assyria, where they are to this day.

²⁴Then the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites. They took possession of Samaria and lived in its towns.

¹⁵Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes, and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the statue I have made, very good. But if you refuse to worship, you will be thrown at once into the blazing fiery furnace. Then what god will be able to deliver you from my hands?”

²³Whom have you taunted and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel!

²⁴Through your servants you have taunted the Lord, and you have said: “With my many chariots I have ascended to the heights of the mountains, to the remote peaks of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars, the finest of its cypresses. I have reached its farthest heights, the densest of its forests.

¹Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?

²The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together, against the Lord and against His Anointed One:

²⁵For he has stretched out his hand against God and has vaunted himself against the Almighty,

²⁶rushing headlong at Him with a thick, studded shield.

¹⁵Does an axe raise itself above the one who swings it? Does a saw boast over him who saws with it? It would be like a rod waving the one who lifts it, or a staff lifting him who is not wood!

¹⁵So now, do not let Hezekiah deceive you, and do not let him mislead you like this. Do not believe him, for no god of any nation or kingdom has been able to deliver his people from my hand or from the hand of my fathers. How much less will your God deliver you from my hand!”

⁶Do not give dogs what is holy; do not throw your pearls before swine. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.

⁴Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be like him.

¹For the choirmaster. For Jeduthun. A Psalm of David. I said, “I will watch my ways so that I will not sin with my tongue; I will guard my mouth with a muzzle as long as the wicked are present.”

¹³But like a deaf man, I do not hear; and like a mute man, I do not open my mouth.

¹⁴I am like a man who cannot hear, whose mouth offers no reply.

¹³Therefore, the prudent keep silent in such times, for the days are evil.

⁷He who corrects a mocker brings shame on himself; he who rebukes a wicked man taints himself.

²⁹When Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes,

²⁴Yet in hearing all these words, the king and his servants did not become frightened or tear their garments.

¹⁹because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its people, that they would become a desolation and a curse, and because you have torn your clothes and wept before Me, I have heard you,’ declares the Lord.

²¹But the people remained silent and did not answer a word, for Hezekiah had commanded, “Do not answer him.”

²²Then Hilkiah’s son Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the scribe, and Asaph’s son Joah the recorder came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and they relayed to him the words of the Rabshakeh.

⁷When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and asked, “Am I God, killing and giving life, that this man expects me to cure a leper? Surely you can see that he is seeking a quarrel with me!”

³⁴Then Jacob tore his clothes, put sackcloth around his waist, and mourned for his son many days.