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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" /><title>2 Kings 18 ESV</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="/chapnew2.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="../spec.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="/print.css" type="text/css" media="Print" /></head><body><div id="fx"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" id="fx2"><tr><td><iframe width="100%" height="30" scrolling="no" src="../cmenus/2_kings/18.htm" align="left" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div><div id="blnk"></div><div align="center"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="maintable"><tr><td><div id="fx5"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" id="fx6"><tr><td><iframe width="100%" height="245" scrolling="no" src="../topmenuchap/2_kings/18-1.htm" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div></td></tr></table></div><div align="center"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="maintable3"><tr><td><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center" id="announce"><tr><td><div id="l1"><div id="breadcrumbs"><a href="http://biblehub.com">Bible</a> > <a href="../">ESV</a> > 2 Kings 18</div><div id="anc"><iframe src="/anc.htm" width="100%" height="27" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe></div><div id="anc2"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tr><td><iframe src="/anc2.htm" width="100%" height="27" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div></div></td></tr></table><div id="movebox2"><table border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td><div id="topheading"><a href="../2_kings/17.htm" title="2 Kings 17">◄</a> 2 Kings 18 <a href="../2_kings/19.htm" title="2 Kings 19">►</a></div></td></tr></table></div><div align="center" class="maintable2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tr><td><div id="leftbox"><div class="padleft"><div class="vheading"><table width="100%"><tr><td width="99%" valign="top">English Standard Version</td><td width="1%" valign="top"><a href="/p/esv/nas/2_kings/18.shtml" style="color:#001320" title="Parallel Chapters"> Par ▾ </a></tr></table></div></a><div class="chap"><p class="heading">Hezekiah Reigns in Judah</p><p class="regular"><span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-1.htm"><b>1</b></a></span>In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-2.htm"><b>2</b></a></span>He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi the daughter of Zechariah. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-3.htm"><b>3</b></a></span>And he did what was right in the eyes of the <span class="divine-name">Lord</span>, according to all that David his father had done. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-4.htm"><b>4</b></a></span>He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan).<span class="footnote"><sup><a href="#footnotes" title="Nehushtan sounds like the Hebrew for both bronze and serpent">a</a></sup></span> <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-5.htm"><b>5</b></a></span>He trusted in the <span class="divine-name">Lord</span>, the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-6.htm"><b>6</b></a></span>For he held fast to the <span class="divine-name">Lord</span>. He did not depart from following him, but kept the commandments that the <span class="divine-name">Lord</span> commanded Moses. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-7.htm"><b>7</b></a></span>And the <span class="divine-name">Lord</span> was with him; wherever he went out, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-8.htm"><b>8</b></a></span>He struck down the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory, from watchtower to fortified city.</p> <p class="regular"><span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-9.htm"><b>9</b></a></span>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, <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-10.htm"><b>10</b></a></span>and at the end of three years he took it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-11.htm"><b>11</b></a></span>The king of Assyria carried the Israelites away to Assyria and put them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes, <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-12.htm"><b>12</b></a></span>because they did not obey the voice of the <span class="divine-name">Lord</span> their God but transgressed his covenant, even all that Moses the servant of the <span class="divine-name">Lord</span> commanded. They neither listened nor obeyed.</p> <p class="heading">Sennacherib Attacks Judah</p><p class="regular"><span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-13.htm"><b>13</b></a></span>In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-14.htm"><b>14</b></a></span>And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong; withdraw from me. Whatever you impose on me I will bear.” And the king of Assyria required of Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents<span class="footnote"><sup><a href="#footnotes" title="A talent was about 75 pounds or 34 kilograms">b</a></sup></span> of silver and thirty talents of gold. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-15.htm"><b>15</b></a></span>And Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the <span class="divine-name">Lord</span> and in the treasuries of the king’s house. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-16.htm"><b>16</b></a></span>At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the temple of the <span class="divine-name">Lord</span> and from the doorposts that Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-17.htm"><b>17</b></a></span>And the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rab-saris, and the Rabshakeh with a great army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. When they arrived, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is on the highway to the Washer’s Field. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-18.htm"><b>18</b></a></span>And when they called for the king, there came out to them Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebnah the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder.</p> <p class="regular"><span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-19.htm"><b>19</b></a></span>And the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you rest this trust of yours? <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-20.htm"><b>20</b></a></span>Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? In whom do you now trust, that you have rebelled against me? <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-21.htm"><b>21</b></a></span>Behold, you are trusting now in Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-22.htm"><b>22</b></a></span>But if you say to me, “We trust in the <span class="divine-name">Lord</span> our God,” is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, “You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem”? <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-23.htm"><b>23</b></a></span>Come now, make a wager with my master the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-24.htm"><b>24</b></a></span>How then can you repulse a single captain among the least of my master’s servants, when you trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-25.htm"><b>25</b></a></span>Moreover, is it without the <span class="divine-name">Lord</span> that I have come up against this place to destroy it? The <span class="divine-name">Lord</span> said to me, “Go up against this land and destroy it.”’”</p> <p class="regular"><span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-26.htm"><b>26</b></a></span>Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and Shebnah, and Joah, said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. Do not speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people who are on the wall.” <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-27.htm"><b>27</b></a></span>But the Rabshakeh said to them, “Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and to drink their own urine?”</p> <p class="regular"><span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-28.htm"><b>28</b></a></span>Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in the language of Judah: “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria! <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-29.htm"><b>29</b></a></span>Thus says the king: ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you out of my<span class="footnote"><sup><a href="#footnotes" title="Hebrew his">c</a></sup></span> hand. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-30.htm"><b>30</b></a></span>Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the <span class="divine-name">Lord</span> by saying, The <span class="divine-name">Lord</span> will surely deliver us, and this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’ <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-31.htm"><b>31</b></a></span>Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria: ‘Make your peace with me<span class="footnote"><sup><a href="#footnotes" title="Hebrew Make a blessing with me">d</a></sup></span> and come out to me. Then each one of you will eat of his own vine, and each one of his own fig tree, and each one of you will drink the water of his own cistern, <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-32.htm"><b>32</b></a></span>until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey, that you may live, and not die. And do not listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you by saying, “The <span class="divine-name">Lord</span> will deliver us.” <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-33.htm"><b>33</b></a></span>Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-34.htm"><b>34</b></a></span>Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-35.htm"><b>35</b></a></span>Who among all the gods of the lands have delivered their lands out of my hand, that the <span class="divine-name">Lord</span> should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’”</p> <p class="regular"><span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-36.htm"><b>36</b></a></span>But the people were silent and answered him not a word, for the king’s command was, “Do not answer him.” <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-37.htm"><b>37</b></a></span>Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him the words of the Rabshakeh.</p><A name="footnotes"></a><hr size="1" color="DDEEFF"><span class="mainfootnotes"><span class="mainfootnoteshdg">Footnotes:</span><br><span class="footnotesbot">a</span> <span class="fnverse">4</span> <i class="catch-word">Nehushtan</i> sounds like the Hebrew for both <i class="catch-word">bronze</i> and <i class="catch-word">serpent</i><br /><span class="footnotesbot">b</span> <span class="fnverse">14</span> A <i class="catch-word-plural">talent</i> was about 75 pounds or 34 kilograms<br /><span class="footnotesbot">c</span> <span class="fnverse">29</span> Hebrew <i>his</i><br /><span class="footnotesbot">d</span> <span class="fnverse">31</span> Hebrew <i><span class="catch-word">Make</span> a blessing with me</i><br /></span></div></div><div id="botbox"><div class="padbot"><div align="center">ESV Text Edition® (2016).<br /><br />The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®) copyright © 2001 by <a href="http://www.crossway.org/home/esv/">Crossway Bibles</a>, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. 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