4. He removed the high places, and broke the pillars, and cut down the Asherah. He also broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, because in those days the children of Israel burnt incense to it; and he called it Nehushtan.
5. He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel; so that after him was no one like him amongst all the kings of Judah, nor amongst them that were before him.
6. For he joined with the Lord. He didn’t 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 didn’t serve him.
8. He struck the Philistines to Gaza and its borders, from the tower of the watchmen to the 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. At the end of three years they took it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken.
11. The king of Assyria carried Israel away to Assyria, and put them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes,
12. because they didn’t obey the Lord their God’s voice, but transgressed his covenant, even all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded, and would not hear it or do it.
13. Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah, and took them.
14. Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria to Lachish, saying, “I have offended you. Return from me. That which you put on me, I will bear.” The king of Assyria appointed to Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.
15. Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the Lord’s house, and in the treasures of the king’s house.
16. At that time, Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the Lord’s temple, and from the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria.
17. The king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rabsaris and Rabshakeh from Lachish to king Hezekiah with a great army to Jerusalem. They went up and came to Jerusalem. When they had come up, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is in the highway of the fuller’s field.
18. When they had called to the king, Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebnah the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder came out to them.