1. Hezekiah son of Ahaz became king of Judah in the third year of Hoshea's rule in Israel.
2. Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he ruled twenty-nine years from Jerusalem. His mother Abi was the daughter of Zechariah.
3. Hezekiah obeyed the Lord, just as his ancestor David had done.
4. He destroyed the local shrines, then tore down the images of foreign gods and cut down the sacred pole for worshipping the goddess Asherah. He also smashed the bronze snake Moses had made. The people had named it Nehushtan and had been offering sacrifices to it.
5. Hezekiah trusted the Lord God of Israel. No other king of Judah was like Hezekiah, either before or after him.
6. He was completely faithful to the Lord and obeyed the laws the Lord had given to Moses for the people.
7. The Lord helped Hezekiah, so he was successful in everything he did. He even rebelled against the king of Assyria, refusing to be his servant.
8. Hezekiah defeated the Philistine towns as far away as Gaza—from the smallest towns to the large, walled cities.
9. During the fourth year of Hezekiah's rule, which was the seventh year of Hoshea's rule in Israel, King Shalmaneser of Assyria led his troops to Samaria, the capital city of Israel. They attacked
10. and captured it three years later, in the sixth year of Hezekiah's rule and the ninth year of Hoshea's rule.
11. The king of Assyria took the Israelites away as prisoners; he forced some of them to live in the town of Halah, others to live near the River Habor in the territory of Gozan, and still others to live in towns where the Median people lived.
12. All of that happened because the people of Israel had not obeyed the Lord their God. They rejected the solemn agreement he had made with them, and they ignored everything that the Lord's servant Moses had told them.
13. In the fourteenth year of Hezekiah's rule in Judah, King Sennacherib of Assyria invaded the country and captured every walled city, except Jerusalem.
14. Hezekiah sent this message to Sennacherib, who was in the town of Lachish: “I know I am guilty of rebellion. But I will pay you whatever you want, if you stop your attack.”Sennacherib told Hezekiah to pay ten thousand kilogrammes of silver and a thousand kilogrammes of gold.