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.
15. So Hezekiah collected all the silver from the Lord's temple and the royal treasury.
16. He even stripped the gold that he had used to cover the doors and doorposts in the temple. He gave it all to Sennacherib.
17. The king of Assyria ordered his three highest military officers to leave Lachish and take a large army to Jerusalem. When they arrived, the officers stood on the road near the cloth makers' shops along the canal from the upper pool.
18. They called out to Hezekiah, and three of his highest officials came out to meet them. One of them was Hilkiah's son Eliakim, who was the prime minister. The other two were Shebna, assistant to the prime minister, and Joah son of Asaph, keeper of the government records.
19. One of the Assyrian commanders told them:I have a message for Hezekiah from the great king of Assyria. Ask Hezekiah why he feels so sure of himself.
20. Does he think he can plan and win a war with nothing but words? Who is going to help him, now that he has turned against the king of Assyria?