¹And it was in the third year of Hoshea the son of Elah, the king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz started to reign as the king of Judah. ²He was twenty-five years old when he started to reign, and he reigned for twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Abi the daughter of Zechariah. ³And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, like everything that David his father did. ⁴He removed the idolatrous raised sites, and he smashed up the standing images, and he cut down the phallic park, and he crushed the copper serpent which Moses had made, for up to those days the sons of Israel had been burning incense to it, and he called it the Copper Serpent. ⁵He trusted in the Lord God of Israel, and there was no-one after him like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among those who were before him. ⁶And he clung to the Lord; he did not turn away from him, and he kept his commandments which the Lord had commanded Moses. ⁷And the Lord was with him. In whatever he set out to do, he was prudent, and he rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him. ⁸He attacked the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territories, from the watchmen's tower to the fortified city. ⁹And it came to pass in the fourth year of King Hezekiah – that is the seventh year of Hoshea the son of Elah, the king of Israel – that Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it. ¹⁰And they captured it after three years. In the sixth year of Hezekiah – that is the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel – Samaria was captured. ¹¹And the king of Assyria deported Israel to Assyria, and he conducted them to Halah and Habor by the River Gozan and in the cities of Media, ¹²because they did not give heed to the Lord their God, and they transgressed his covenant – everything that Moses the Lord's servant commanded – and did not give heed and did not do it. ¹³Then in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria went up against all the fortified cities of Judah and seized them. ¹⁴And Hezekiah king of Judah sent a messenger to the king of Assyria in Lachish to say, “I have been wrong. Leave me; I will bear whatever you impose on me.” And the king of Assyria imposed on Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. ¹⁵And Hezekiah gave all the silver which was present in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king's house. ¹⁶At that time Hezekiah stripped the doors of the Lord's temple and the lintels which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and he gave the proceeds to the king of Assyria. ¹⁷And the king of Assyria sent Tartan and the chief eunuch and the chief butler from Lachish to King Hezekiah with a sizeable army to Jerusalem, and they went up and arrived in Jerusalem, and when they had gone up and arrived, they stood at the conduit at the upper pool, which is at the aqueduct to the washer's site. ¹⁸And they called out to the king, and Eliakim, Hilkiah's son, who was in charge of the house, came out to them, as did Shebna the scribe and Joah the son of Asaph, the state secretary. ¹⁹And the chief butler said to them, “Kindly say to Hezekiah, ‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: «What is this object of trust in which you trust? ²⁰You have said – but it is vain talk – ‹I have counsel and wherewithal for war.› Now in whom have you trusted? For you have rebelled against me. ²¹Now look, you have put your trust in this buckled reed staff – in Egypt – and if a man leans on it, it slips into his hand and pierces it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him. ²²And if you say to me, ‹We trust in the Lord our God›, is that not he whose raised sites and whose altars Hezekiah removed, when he said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‹It is before this altar that you will worship in Jerusalem›?» ’ ²³So now, please enter into a contract with my lord the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses if you are able to provide yourself with riders on them. ²⁴And how can you decline the offer of a governor among the least of my lord's servants and entrust yourself to Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? ²⁵Now did I come up without the Lord against this place, to bring it to ruin? The Lord said to me, ‘Go up against this land and bring it to ruin.’ ” ²⁶Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah and Shebna and Joah said to the chief butler, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it, and do not speak to us in Judaean, it being intelligible to the people who are on the wall.” ²⁷Then the chief butler said to them, “Is it to your master and to you that my lord has sent me to speak these words? Is it not to the people sitting on the wall, in that they will have to eat their excrement and drink their urine with you?” ²⁸Then the chief butler stood up and called out in a loud voice in Judaean, and he spoke and said, “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria. ²⁹This is what the king says: ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you from Sennacherib's grip. ³⁰And do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the Lord, saying, «The Lord will certainly deliver us, and this city will not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.» ’ ³¹Do not listen to Hezekiah, for this is what the king of Assyria says: ‘Make things a blessing in partnership with me, and come out to me, then let each man eat from his vine, and each man from his fig tree, and let each man drink water from his cistern, ³²until I come to take you to a land like your own land – a land of corn and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, and a land of fresh olive oil and honey – and live and do not die, and do not listen to Hezekiah, for he will entice you, saying, «The Lord will deliver us.» ³³Have the gods of the nations ever delivered anyone's land from the grip of the king of Assyria? ³⁴Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah? Now have they delivered Samaria from my grip? ³⁵Who are there among all the gods of the various countries who have delivered their country from my grip? So will the Lord deliver Jerusalem from my grip?’ ” ³⁶And the people became silent and did not answer him a word, for the king's commandment was, “Do not answer him.” ³⁷Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the state secretary, went to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and they told him the chief butler's words.