4. He removed the high places, broke down the sacred pillars, cut down the Asherah poles, and crushed the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the children of Israel had made offerings to it. They called it Nehushtan.
5. He trusted in the Lord God of Israel. Afterwards, there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah or among those who were before him.
6. He clung to the Lord. He did not depart from following him, but kept His commandments, which the Lord commanded Moses.
7. The Lord was with him. Wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.
8. He struck the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory, from watchtower to fortified city.
9. In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it.
10. He seized it at the end of three years. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is, the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken.
11. Then the king of Assyria exiled Israel to Assyria and put them in Halah and in Habor by the River of Gozan and in the cities of the Medes,
12. because they did not obey the voice of the Lord their God, but transgressed His covenant and all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded, and would not obey or do them.
13. In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.
14. Hezekiah king of Judah sent word to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong; turn away from me. I will bear whatever you put on me.” So the king of Assyria required of Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.
15. So Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king’s house.
16. At that time Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord and from the doorposts that Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria.
17. Then the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rabsaris, and the Rabshakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah with a great army against Jerusalem. So they went up and came to Jerusalem. When they went up, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is on the highway of the Fuller’s Field.