Hoshea rules Israel

17 Hoshea, Elah’s son, became king in Samaria in the twelfth year of Judah’s king Ahaz. He ruled over Israel for nine years. ² He did what was evil in the Lord’s eyes, but he wasn’t as bad as the Israelite kings who preceded him. ³ Assyria’s King Shalmaneser marched against Hoshea, and Hoshea became Shalmaneser’s servant, paying him tribute. ⁴ But the Assyrian king discovered that Hoshea was a traitor, because Hoshea sent messengers to Egypt’s King So. Hoshea stopped paying tribute to the Assyrian king as he had in previous years, so the Assyrian king arrested him and put him in prison. ⁵ Then the Assyrian king invaded the whole country. He marched against Samaria and attacked it for three years. ⁶ In Hoshea’s ninth year, the Assyrian king captured Samaria. He sent Israel into exile to Assyria, resettling them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River, and in the cities of the Medes.

The northern kingdom falls

⁷ All this happened because the Israelites sinned against the Lord their God, who brought them up from the land of Egypt, out from under the power of Pharaoh, Egypt’s king. They worshipped other gods. ⁸ They followed the practices of the nations that the Lord had removed before the Israelites, as well as the practices that the Israelite kings had done.^{[a] 9} The Israelites secretly did things against the Lord their God that weren’t right. They built shrines in all their towns, from watchtowers to fortified cities. ¹⁰ They set up sacred pillars and sacred poles^[b] on every high hill and beneath every green tree. ¹¹ At every shrine they burned incense, just as the nations did that the Lord sent into exile before them. They did evil things that made the Lord angry. ¹² They worshipped images about which the Lord had said, Don’t do such things! ¹³ The Lord warned Israel and Judah through all the prophets and seers, telling them, Turn from your evil ways. Keep my commandments and my regulations in agreement with the entire Instruction that I commanded your ancestors and sent through my servants the prophets.

¹⁴ But they wouldn’t listen. They were stubborn like their ancestors who didn’t trust the Lord their God. ¹⁵ They rejected his regulations and the covenant he had made with their ancestors, along with the warnings he had given them. They followed worthless images so that they too became worthless. And they imitated the neighboring nations that the Lord had forbidden them to imitate. ¹⁶ They deserted all the commandments of the Lord their God. They made themselves two metal idols cast in the shape of calves and made a sacred pole.^[c] They bowed down to all the heavenly bodies. They served Baal. ¹⁷ They burned their sons and daughters alive. They practiced divination and sought omens. They gave themselves over to doing what was evil in the Lord’s eyes and made him angry.

¹⁸ So the Lord was very angry at Israel. He removed them from his presence. Only the tribe of Judah was spared. ¹⁹ But Judah didn’t keep the commands of the Lord their God either. They followed the practices of Israel. ²⁰ So the Lord rejected all of Israel’s descendants. He punished them, and he handed them over to enemies who plundered them until he finally threw them out of his sight.

²¹ When Israel broke away^[d] from David’s dynasty, they made Nebat’s son Jeroboam the king. Jeroboam drove Israel away from the Lord. He caused them to commit great sin. ²² And the Israelites continued walking in all the sins that Jeroboam did. They didn’t deviate from them, ²³ and the Lord finally removed Israel from his presence. That was exactly what he had warned through all his servants the prophets. So Israel was exiled from its land to Assyria. And that’s still how it is today.

New settlers in Samaria

²⁴ The Assyrian king brought people from Babylon, Cuth, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, resettling them in the cities of Samaria in place of the Israelites. These people took control of Samaria and settled in its cities. ²⁵ But when they began to live there, they didn’t worship the Lord, so the Lord sent lions against them, and the lions began to kill them. ²⁶ Assyria’s king was told about this: “The nations you sent into exile and resettled in the cities of Samaria don’t know the religious practices of the local god. He’s sent lions against them, and the lions are killing them because none of them know the religious practices of the local god.”

²⁷ So Assyria’s king commanded, “Return one of the priests that you exiled from there. He^[e] should go back and live there. He should teach them the religious practices of the local god.” ²⁸ So one of the priests who had been exiled from Samaria went back. He lived in Bethel and taught the people how to worship the Lord.

²⁹ But each nationality still made its own gods. They set them up in the houses that the people of Samaria had made at the shrines. Each nationality did this in whichever cities they lived. ³⁰ The Babylonian people made the god Succoth-benoth, the Cuthean people made Nergal, and the people from Hamath made Ashima. ³¹ The Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak. The Sepharvites burned their children alive as a sacrifice to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the Sepharvite gods. ³² They also worshipped the Lord, but they appointed priests for the shrines from their whole population. These priests worked in the houses at the shrines. ³³ So they worshipped the Lord, but they also served their own gods according to the religious practices of the nations from which they had been exiled.

³⁴ They are still following their former religious practices to this very day. They don’t really worship the Lord. Nor do they follow the regulations, the case laws, the Instruction, or the commandment that the Lord commanded the children of Jacob, whom he renamed Israel. ³⁵ The Lord had made a covenant with them, commanding them, Don’t worship other gods. Don’t bow down to them or serve them. Don’t sacrifice to them. ³⁶ Instead, worship only the Lord. He’s the one who brought you up from the land of Egypt with great strength and an outstretched arm. Bow down to him! Sacrifice to him! ³⁷ You must carefully keep the regulations and case laws, the Instruction, and the commandment that he wrote for you. Don’t worship other gods. ³⁸ Don’t forget the covenant that I made with you. Don’t worship other gods. ³⁹ Instead, worship only the Lord your God. He will rescue you from your enemies’ power.

⁴⁰ But they wouldn’t listen. Instead, they continued doing their former religious practices. ⁴¹ So these nations worship the Lord, but they also serve their idols. The children and the grandchildren are doing the very same thing their parents did. And that’s how things still are today.

Hezekiah rules Judah

18 Hezekiah, Ahaz’s son, became king of Judah in the third year of Israel’s King Hoshea, Elah’s son. ² He was 25 years old when he became king, and he ruled twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi;^[f] she was Zechariah’s daughter. ³ Hezekiah did what was right in the Lord’s eyes, just as his ancestor David had done. ⁴ He removed the shrines. He smashed the sacred pillars and cut down the sacred pole.^[g] He crushed the bronze snake that Moses made, because up to that point the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (The snake was named Nehushtan.)

⁵ Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, Israel’s God. There was no one like him among all of Judah’s kings—not before him and not after him. ⁶ He clung to the Lord and never deviated from him. He kept the commandments that the Lord had commanded Moses. ⁷ The Lord was with Hezekiah; he succeeded at everything he tried. He rebelled against Assyria’s king and wouldn’t serve him. ⁸ He struck down the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territories, from watchtower to fortified city.

⁹ Assyria’s King Shalmaneser marched against Samaria and attacked it in the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Israel’s King Hoshea, Elah’s son. ¹⁰ After three years the Assyrians captured the city. Samaria was captured in Hezekiah’s sixth year, which was Hoshea’s ninth year. ¹¹ Assyria’s king sent Israel into exile to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River, and in the cities of the Medes. ¹² All this happened because they wouldn’t listen to the Lord their God. They broke his covenant—all that the Lord’s servant Moses had commanded them. They didn’t listen, and they didn’t do it.

¹³ Assyria’s King Sennacherib marched against all of Judah’s fortified cities and captured them in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah. ¹⁴ Judah’s King Hezekiah sent a message to the Assyrian king at Lachish, saying, “I admit wrongdoing. Please withdraw from me, and I’ll agree to whatever you demand from me.” Assyria’s king required Judah’s King Hezekiah to pay him three hundred kikkars of silver and thirty kikkars of gold. ¹⁵ So Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was in the Lord’s temple and in the palace treasuries. ¹⁶ At that time King Hezekiah had to strip down the doors and doorposts of the Lord’s temple, which he had covered with gold. He gave all of it to the Assyrian king.

¹⁷ Assryia’s king sent his general, his chief officer, and his field commander from Lachish, together with a large army, to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They went up and arrived at Jerusalem. They stood at the water channel of the Upper Pool, which is on the road to the field where clothes are washed. ¹⁸ Then they called for the king. Hilkiah’s son Eliakim, who was the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Asaph’s son Joah the recorder went out to them.

¹⁹ Then the field commander said to them, “Say to Hezekiah: This is what Assyria’s Great King says: Why do you feel so confident? ²⁰ Do you think that empty words are the same as good strategy and the strength to fight? Who are you trusting in that you now rebel against me? ²¹ It appears that you are trusting in a staff—Egypt—that’s nothing but a broken reed! It will stab the hand of anyone who leans on it! That’s all that Pharaoh, Egypt’s king, is to anyone who trusts in him. ²² Now suppose you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God.’ Isn’t he the one whose shrines and altars Hezekiah removed, telling Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You must worship before this altar in Jerusalem’?

²³ “So now make a wager with my master, Assyria’s king. I’ll give you two thousand horses if you can supply the riders! ²⁴ How will you drive back even the least important official among my master’s servants when you are relying on Egypt for chariots and riders? ²⁵ What’s more, do you think I’ve marched against this place to destroy it without the Lord’s support? It was the Lord who told me, March against this land and destroy it!”

²⁶ Hilkiah’s son Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the field commander, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic because we understand it. Don’t speak with us in Hebrew, because the people on the wall will hear it.”

²⁷ The field commander said to them, “Did my master send me to speak these words just to you and your master and not also to the men on the wall? They are the ones who will have to eat their dung and drink their urine along with you.” ²⁸ Then the field commander stood up and shouted in Hebrew at the top of his voice, saying, “Listen to the message of the great king, Assyria’s king. ²⁹ This is what the king says: Don’t let Hezekiah lie to you. He won’t be able to rescue you from the power of Assyria’s king. ³⁰ Don’t let Hezekiah persuade you to trust the Lord by saying, ‘The Lord will certainly rescue us. This city won’t be handed over to Assyria’s king.’

³¹ “Don’t listen to Hezekiah, because this is what Assyria’s king says: Surrender to me and come out. Then each of you will eat from your own vine and fig tree, and drink water from your own well ³² until I come to take you to a land just like your land. It will be a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive oil and honey. Then you will live and not die! Don’t listen to Hezekiah, because he will mislead you by saying, ‘The Lord will rescue us.’ ³³ Were any of the gods of the other nations able to rescue their lands from the power of Assyria’s king? ³⁴ Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Have they rescued Samaria from my power? ³⁵ Which one of any of the gods of those lands has rescued their country from my power? Why should the Lord rescue Jerusalem from my power?”

³⁶ But the people kept quiet and didn’t answer him with a single word, because King Hezekiah’s command was, “Don’t answer him!” ³⁷ Hilkiah’s son Eliakim, who was the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Asaph’s son Joah the recorder, came to Hezekiah with ripped clothes. They told him what the field commander had said.