2 Kings 19-21

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2 Kings 19

And it came to pass, when king Hezekiah heard it, that he rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of Yahweh. 2 And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz. 3 And they said to him, In this manner says Hezekiah, This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of contumely; for the children have come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth. 4 It may be Yahweh your Elohim will hear all the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to defy the living Elohim, and will rebuke the words which Yahweh your Elohim has heard: therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left. 5 So the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah. 6 And Isaiah said to them, In this manner shall you say to your master, In this manner says Yahweh, Be not afraid of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. 7 Behold, I will put a spirit in him, and he shall hear tidings, and shall return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.

8 So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah; for he had heard that he had departed from Lachish. 9 And when he heard say of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, Behold, he has come out to fight against you, he sent messengers again to Hezekiah, saying, 10 In this manner shall you speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Let not your Elohim in whom you trust deceive you, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. 11 Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly: and shall you be delivered? 12 Have the elohim of the nations delivered them, which my fathers have destroyed, Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden that were in Telassar? 13 Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah?

14 And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of Yahweh, and spread it before Yahweh. 15 And Hezekiah prayed before Yahweh, and said, O Yahweh, the Elohim of Israel, who sits above the cherubim, you are the Elohim, even you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. 16 Incline your ear, O Yahweh, and hear; open your eyes, O Yahweh, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, with which he has sent him to defy the living Elohim. 17 Of a truth, Yahweh, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands, 18 and have cast their elohim into the fire; for they were no elohim, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone; therefore they have destroyed them. 19 Now therefore, O Yahweh our Elohim, save you us, I plead you, out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you Yahweh are Elohim alone.

20 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, In this manner says Yahweh, the Elohim of Israel, Whereas you have prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria, I have heard you. 21 This is the word that Yahweh has spoken concerning him: The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and laughed you to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you. 22 Whom have you defied and blasphemed? Against whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Even against the Holy One of Israel. 23 By your messengers you have defied Yahweh, and have said, With the multitude of my chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the innermost parts of Lebanon; and I will cut down the tall cedars of it, and the choice fir-trees of it; and I will enter into his farthest lodging-place, the forest of his fruitful field. 24 I have dug and drunk strange waters, and with the sole of my feet will I dry up all the rivers of Egypt.

25 Have you not heard how I have done it long ago, and formed it of ancient times? Now I have brought it to pass, that it should be yours to lay waste fortified cities into ruined heaps. 26 Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded; they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops, and as grain blasted before it has grown up. 27 But I know your sitting down, and your going out, and your coming in, and your raging against me. 28 Because of your raging against me, and because your arrogancy has come up into my ears, therefore will I put my hook in your nose, and my bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way by which you came.

29 And this shall be the sign to you: you shall eat this year that which grows of itself, and in the second year that which springs of the same; and in the third year sow, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of it. 30 And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward. 31 For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and out of mount Zion they that shall escape: the zeal of Yahweh shall perform this. 32 Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come to this city, nor shoot an arrow there, neither shall he come before it with shield, nor cast up a mound against it. 33 By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and he shall not come to this city, says Yahweh. 34 For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake, and for my servant David’s sake.

35 And it came to pass that night, that the angel of Yahweh went forth, and struck in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred eighty-five thousand: and when men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. 36 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh. 37 And it came to pass, as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his elohim, that Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him with the sword: and they escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.

 

2 Kings 20

In those days Hezekiah was deathly sick. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, In this manner says Yahweh, Set your house in order; for you shall die, and not live. 2 Then he turned his face to the wall, and prayed to Yahweh, saying 3 Remember now, O Yahweh, I plead you, how I have walked before you in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in your sight. And Hezekiah wept bitterly. 4 And it came to pass, before Isaiah had gone out into the middle part of the city, that the word of Yahweh came to him, saying, 5 Turn back, and say to Hezekiah the prince of my people, In this manner says Yahweh, the Elohim of David your father, I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears: behold, I will heal you; on the third day you shall go up to the house of Yahweh. 6 And I will add to your days fifteen years; and I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city for my own sake, and for my servant David’s sake. 7 And Isaiah said, Take a cake of figs. And they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered.

8 And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, What shall be the sign that Yahweh will heal me, and that I shall go up to the house of Yahweh the third day? 9 And Isaiah said, This shall be the sign to you from Yahweh, that Yahweh will do the thing that he has spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten steps, or go back ten steps? 10 And Hezekiah answered, It is a light thing for the shadow to decline ten steps: no, but let the shadow return backward ten steps. 11 And Isaiah the prophet cried to Yahweh; and he brought the shadow ten steps backward, by which it had gone down on the dial of Ahaz.

12 At that time Berodach-baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah; for he had heard that Hezekiah had been sick. 13 And Hezekiah listened to them, and showed them all the house of his precious things, the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious oil, and the house of his armor, and all that was found in his treasures: there was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah did not show them. 14 Then came Isaiah the prophet to king Hezekiah, and said to him, What did these men say? From where did they come to you? And Hezekiah said, They have come from a far country, even from Babylon. 15 And he said, What have they seen in your house? And Hezekiah answered, All that is in my house have they seen: there is nothing among my treasures that I have not showed them.

16 And Isaiah said to Hezekiah, Hear the word of Yahweh. 17 Behold the days come, that all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have laid up in store to this day, shall be carried to Babylon: nothing shall be left, says Yahweh. 18 And of your sons that shall issue from you, whom you shall procreate, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. 19 Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, Good is the word of Yahweh which you have spoken. He said moreover, Is it not so, if peace and truth shall be in my days? 20 Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and all his might, and how he made the pool, and the conduit, and brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? 21 And Hezekiah slept with his fathers; and Manasseh his son reigned in his place.

 

2 Kings 21

Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign; and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem: and his mother’s name was Hephzibah. 2 And he did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, after the abominations of the nations whom Yahweh cast out before the children of Israel. 3 For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he raised up altars for Baal, and made an Asherah, as did Ahab king of Israel, and worshiped all the host of heaven, and served them. 4 And he built altars in the house of Yahweh, of which Yahweh said, In Jerusalem I will put my name. 5 And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of Yahweh. 6 And he made his son to pass through the fire, and practiced augury, and used enchantments, and dealt with them that had familiar spirits, and with wizards; he worked much evil in the sight of Yahweh, to provoke him to anger. 7 And he set the carved image of Asherah, that he had made, in the house of which Yahweh said to David and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever, 8 neither will I cause the feet of Israel to wander any more out of the land which I gave their fathers, if only they will observe to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the law that my servant Moses commanded them. 9 But they listened not: and Manasseh seduced them to do that which is evil more than did the nations whom Yahweh destroyed before the children of Israel.

10 And Yahweh spoke by his servants the prophets, saying, 11 Because Manasseh king of Judah has done these abominations, and has done wickedly above all that the Amorites did, that were before him, and has made Judah also to sin with his idols; 12 therefore thus says Yahweh, the Elohim of Israel, Behold, I bring such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whoever hears of it, both his ears shall tingle. 13 And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plumb of the house of Ahab; and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. 14 And I will cast off the remnant of my inheritance, and deliver them into the hand of their enemies and they shall become a prey and a plunder to all their enemies; 15 because they have done that which is evil in my sight, and have provoked me to anger, since the day their fathers came forth out of Egypt, even to this day.

16 Moreover Manasseh shed very much innocent blood, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; besides his sin with which he made Judah to sin, in doing that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh. 17 Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and all that he did, and his sin that he sinned, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? 18 And Manasseh slept with his fathers, and was buried in the garden of his own house, in the garden of Uzza: and Amon his son reigned in his place.

19 Amon was twenty-two years old when he began to reign; and he reigned two years in Jerusalem: and his mother’s name was Meshullemeth the daughter of Haruz of Jotbah. 20 And he did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, as did Manasseh his father. 21 And he walked in all the way that his father walked in, and served the idols that his father served, and worshiped them: 22 and he forsook Yahweh, the Elohim of his fathers, and did not walk in the way of Yahweh. 23 And the servants of Amon conspired against him, and put the king to death in his own house. 24 But the people of the land killed all them that had conspired against king Amon; and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his place. 25 Now the rest of the acts of Amon which he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? 26 And he was buried in his sepulchre in the garden of Uzza: and Josiah his son reigned in his place.

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