6. He was loyal to the Lord and never turned away from him. He obeyed the commands that the Lord had given through Moses,
7. so the Lord was with him. He succeeded in everything he tried: He rebelled against the king of Assyria and wouldn’t serve him anymore.
8. He conquered the Philistines from the ⌊smallest⌋ watchtower to the ⌊largest⌋ fortified city all the way to Gaza and its territory.
9. In Hezekiah’s fourth year as king (which was the seventh year in the reign of King Hoshea, son of Elah of Israel) King Shalmaneser of Assyria attacked Samaria, blockaded it,
10. and captured it at the end of three years. Samaria was taken in Hezekiah’s sixth year as king (which was Hoshea’s ninth year as king of Israel).
11. The king of Assyria took the Israelites to Assyria as captives. He put them in Halah, along the Habor River in Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
12. This happened because they refused to obey the Lord their God and disregarded the conditions of the promise he made to them. They refused to obey everything that Moses, the Lord’s servant, had commanded.
13. In Hezekiah’s fourteenth year as king, King Sennacherib of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.
14. Then King Hezekiah of Judah sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: “I have done wrong. Go away, and leave me alone. I’ll pay whatever penalty you give me.”So the king of Assyria demanded that King Hezekiah of Judah pay 22,500 pounds of silver and 2,250 pounds of gold.
15. Hezekiah gave him all the silver that could be found in the Lord’s temple and in the royal palace treasury.
16. At that time Hezekiah stripped ⌊the gold⌋ off the doors and doorposts of the Lord’s temple. (⌊Earlier⌋ Hezekiah had them covered ⌊with gold⌋.) He gave the gold to the king of Assyria.
17. Then the king of Assyria sent his commander-in-chief, his quartermaster, and his field commander with a large army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They came there and stood at the channel for the Upper Pool on the road to the Laundryman’s Field.
18. When they called for King Hezekiah, Eliakim, who was in charge of the palace and was the son of Hilkiah, Shebnah the scribe, and Joah, who was the royal historian and the son of Asaph, went out to the field commander.
19. The field commander said to them, “Tell Hezekiah, ‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: What makes you so confident?
20. You give useless advice about getting ready for war. Whom, then, do you trust for support in your rebellion against me?
21. Now, look! When you trust Egypt, you’re trusting a broken stick for a staff. If you lean on it, it stabs your hand and goes through it. This is what Pharaoh (the king of Egypt) is like for everyone who trusts him.
22. Suppose you tell me, “We’re trusting the Lord our God.” He’s the god whose places of worship and altars Hezekiah got rid of. He told Judah and Jerusalem, “Worship at this altar in Jerusalem.” ’
23. “Now, make a deal with my master, the king of Assyria. I’ll give you 2,000 horses if you can put riders on them.
24. How can you defeat my master’s lowest-ranking officers when you trust Egypt for chariots and horses?
25. “Have I come to destroy this place without the Lord on my side? The Lord said to me, ‘Attack this country, and destroy it.’ ”
26. Then Eliakim (son of Hilkiah), Shebnah, and Joah said to the field commander, “Speak to us in Aramaic, since we understand it. Don’t speak to us in the Judean language as long as there are people on the wall listening.”