2 Kings 16–20

Ahaz Reigns in Judah

16In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, Ahaz the son of Jotham, king of Judah, began to reign. ²Ahaz was ^ytwenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. And he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God, as his father David had done, ³but he walked in the way of the kings of Israel. ^zHe even burned his son as an offering,^{1 a}according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. ^4bAnd he sacrificed and made offerings ^con the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.

^5dThen Rezin king of Syria and ^dPekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came up to wage war on Jerusalem, and they besieged Ahaz ^ebut could not conquer him. ⁶At that time Rezin the king of Syria recovered ^fElath for Syria and drove the men of Judah from ^fElath, and the Edomites came to Elath, where they dwell to this day. ^7gSo Ahaz sent messengers to ^hTiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and rescue me from the hand of the king of Syria and from the hand of the king of Israel, who are attacking me.” ⁸Ahaz also ⁱtook the silver and gold that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasures of the king’s house and sent a present to the king of Assyria. ^9jAnd the king of Assyria listened to him. The king of Assyria marched up against Damascus ^kand took it, carrying its people captive to ^lKir, and he killed Rezin.

¹⁰When King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet ^mTiglath-pileser king of Assyria, he saw the altar that was at Damascus. And King Ahaz sent to ⁿUriah the priest a model of the altar, and its pattern, exact in all its details. ¹¹And Uriah the priest built the altar; in accordance with all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus, so Uriah the priest made it, before King Ahaz arrived from Damascus. ¹²And when the king came from Damascus, the king viewed the altar. ^oThen the king drew near to the altar and went up on it ¹³and burned his burnt offering and his grain offering and poured his drink offering and threw the blood of his peace offerings on the altar. ¹⁴And ^pthe bronze altar that was before the Lord he removed ^qfrom the front of the house, from the place between ^rhis altar and the house of the Lord, and put it on the north side of ^rhis altar. ¹⁵And King Ahaz commanded Uriah the priest, saying, “On the great altar burn ^sthe morning burnt offering and the evening grain offering and the king’s burnt offering and his grain offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land, and their grain offering and their drink offering. And throw on it all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of the sacrifice, but ^tthe bronze altar shall be for me to inquire by.” ¹⁶Uriah the priest did all this, as King Ahaz commanded.

¹⁷And King Ahaz cut off the frames of the stands and removed the basin from them, and he took down ^uthe sea² from off the bronze oxen that were under it and put it on a stone pedestal. ¹⁸And the covered way for the Sabbath that had been built inside the house and the outer entrance for the king he caused to go around the house of the Lord, because of the king of Assyria. ¹⁹Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz that he did, are they not written ^vin the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? ²⁰And Ahaz slept with his fathers and ^wwas buried with his fathers in the city of David, and Hezekiah his son reigned in his place.

Hoshea Reigns in Israel

17In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, ^xHoshea the son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel, and he reigned nine years. ²And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, yet not as the kings of Israel who were before him. ^3yAgainst him came up ^zShalmaneser king of Assyria. And Hoshea became his vassal and paid him tribute. ⁴But the king of Assyria found treachery in Hoshea, for he had sent messengers to So, king of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison. ⁵Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria, and for three years he besieged it.

The Fall of Israel

⁶In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria ^acaptured Samaria, ^band he carried the Israelites away to Assyria ^cand placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of ^dGozan, and in the cities of ^ethe Medes.

Exile Because of Idolatry

⁷And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, ^fwho had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods ^8gand walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel, ^hand in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced. ⁹And the people of Israel did secretly against the Lord their God things that were not right. They built for themselves high places in all their towns, ⁱfrom watchtower to fortified city. ¹⁰They set up for themselves ^jpillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree, ¹¹and there they made offerings on all the high places, as the nations did whom the Lord carried away before them. And they did wicked things, provoking the Lord to anger, ¹²and they served idols, ^kof which the Lord had said to them, “You shall not do this.” ¹³Yet the Lord ^lwarned Israel and Judah ^mby every prophet ⁿand every seer, saying, ^o“Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the Law that I commanded your fathers, and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets.”

¹⁴But they would not listen, ^pbut were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the Lord their God. ¹⁵They despised his statutes ^qand his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after ^rfalse idols ^sand became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the ^tLord had commanded them that they should not do like them. ¹⁶And they abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made for themselves metal images of ^utwo calves; and they ^vmade an Asherah and ^wworshiped all the host of heaven and served ^xBaal. ^17yAnd they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings¹ and used ^zdivination and ^aomens and ^bsold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. ¹⁸Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight. None was left but ^cthe tribe of Judah only.

^19dJudah also did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the customs that Israel had introduced. ²⁰And the Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel and afflicted them ^eand gave them into the hand of plunderers, until he had cast them out of his sight.

^21fWhen he had torn Israel from the house of David, ^gthey made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king. And Jeroboam drove Israel from following the Lord ^hand made them commit great sin. ²²The people of Israel walked in all the sins that Jeroboam did. They did not depart from them, ²³until the Lord removed Israel out of his sight, ⁱas he had spoken by all his servants the prophets. ^jSo Israel was exiled from their own land to Assyria until this day.

Assyria Resettles Samaria

^24kAnd the king of Assyria brought people from ^lBabylon, Cuthah, ^mAvva, ⁿHamath, and ^oSepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the people of Israel. And they took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities. ²⁵And at the beginning of their dwelling there, they did not fear the Lord. Therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which killed some of them. ²⁶So the king of Assyria was told, “The nations that you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the law of the god of the land. Therefore he has sent lions among them, and behold, they are killing them, because they do not know the law of the god of the land.” ²⁷Then the king of Assyria commanded, “Send there one of the priests whom you carried away from there, and let him² go and dwell there and teach them the law of the god of the land.” ²⁸So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and lived in ^pBethel and taught them how they should fear the Lord.

²⁹But every nation still made gods of its own and put them ^qin the shrines of the high places that the Samaritans had made, every nation in the cities in which they lived. ³⁰The men of ^rBabylon made Succoth-benoth, the men of Cuth made Nergal, the men of Hamath made Ashima, ³¹and the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; and the Sepharvites ^sburned their children in the fire to ^tAdrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of ^uSepharvaim. ^32vThey also feared the Lord ^wand appointed from among themselves all sorts of people as priests of the high places, who sacrificed for them in the shrines of ^xthe high places. ³³So they feared the Lord but also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away.

³⁴To this day they do according to the former manner. They do not fear the Lord, and they do not follow the statutes or the rules or the law or the commandment that the Lord commanded the children of Jacob, ^ywhom he named Israel. ³⁵The Lord made a covenant with them and commanded them, ^z“You shall not fear other gods ^aor bow yourselves to them or serve them or sacrifice to them, ³⁶but ^byou shall fear the Lord, ^cwho brought you out of the land of Egypt with great power and ^dwith an outstretched arm. You shall bow yourselves to him, and to him you shall sacrifice. ³⁷And the statutes and the rules and the law and the commandment that he wrote for you, ^eyou shall always be careful to do. ^zYou shall not fear other gods, ³⁸and ^fyou shall not forget the covenant that I have made with you. ^zYou shall not fear other gods, ³⁹but ^byou shall fear the Lord your God, and he will deliver you out of the hand of all your…