2 Kings 16–20

Ahaz Reigns in Judah and Seeks Help against the Assyrians

16In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, Ahaz the son of Jotham king of Judah began to reign. ²Ahaz was twenty years old^a when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. He did not do right in the eyes of Yahweh his God as David his ancestor.^{b 3}He walked in the way of the kings of Israel; he even let his son pass through the fire according to the detestable things of the nations which Yahweh drove out from before the Israelites.^{c 4}He sacrificed and offered incense on the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree. ⁵Then Rezin the king of Aram went up with Pekah the son of Remaliah king of Israel against Jerusalem for battle, and they besieged Ahaz but were not able to defeat^d him. ⁶At that time, Rezin king of Aram recovered Elath for Aram and drove out the Judeans from Elath. The Arameans came to Elath and have lived there until this day.

⁷Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and rescue me from the hand of the king of Aram and from the hand of the king of Israel who are rising up against me.” ⁸Ahaz took the silver and gold found in the house of Yahweh and in the treasury rooms of the palace of the king, and he sent a gift to the king of Assyria. ⁹So the king of Assyria listened to him and he went up to Damascus and captured it and deported them to Kir. He also killed Rezin.

Damascus Falls to the Assyrians

¹⁰So King Ahaz went to meet Tiglath-Pileser the king of Assyria in Damascus, and he saw the altar that was in Damascus, so King Ahaz sent to Uriah the priest the builder’s plan of the altar and the exact model of how it had been made.^{e 11}So Uriah the priest built the altar according to all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus; thus Uriah the priest did before King Ahaz came from Damascus. ¹²When the king came from Damascus, the king saw the altar, so he went near to the altar and went up on it. ¹³Then he offered his burnt offerings and his grain offerings, he poured his libations and dashed the blood of his fellowship offerings against the altar. ¹⁴Now the bronze altar that was before Yahweh, he brought over from the front of the temple, from between his altar and the temple of Yahweh, and he placed it at the side of his altar to the north. ¹⁵Then King Ahaz commanded Uriah the priest, saying, “On the great altar burn the morning burnt offering and the grain offering of the evening, the burnt offering of the king and his grain offering, the burnt offering of all of the people of the land, their offerings, their libations, and all of the blood of the burnt offerings, the blood of the sacrifices you must dash on it. But the bronze altar shall be for me to inquire by.” ¹⁶So Uriah the priest did according to all that King Ahaz commanded. ¹⁷Then King Ahaz cut off the side panels of the water carts and removed from upon them the basin, and the sea he took down from the bronze oxen that were under it and put it on a stone base. ¹⁸The covering for the Sabbath, which they had built in the palace and in the entrance of the king to the outside, he removed from the temple of Yahweh because of the presence of the king of Assyria. ¹⁹Now the remainder of the acts of Ahaz that he did, are they not written in the scroll of the events of the days of the kings of Judah? ²⁰So Ahaz slept with his ancestors^f and was buried with his ancestors^g in the city of David, and Hezekiah his son reigned in his place.

Hoshea Reigns in Israel

17In the twelfth year of Ahaz the king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah began to reign over Israel in Samaria, reigning nine years. ²He did evil in the eyes of Yahweh, only not as the kings of Israel who were before him. ³Shalmaneser the king of Assyria^a came up against him, and Hoshea became his vassal and paid tribute to him. ⁴But the king of Assyria found treachery in Hoshea, for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and he did not offer tribute to the king of Assyria as he had year after year; so the king of Assyria arrested him, and confined him in a house of imprisonment. ⁵So the king of Assyria went up in all the land, then he went up to Samaria and besieged it for three years.

Israel Deported to Assyria and the Reasons It Fell

⁶In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported Israel to Assyria. He placed them in Halah, in Habor, in the river regions of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. ⁷Now this happened because the Israelites^b had sinned against Yahweh their God when he brought them up from the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh the king of Egypt and they feared other gods. ⁸They walked in the statutes of the nations whom Yahweh had driven out from before the Israelites,^c which the kings of Israel had introduced. ⁹The Israelites^d secretly did things that were not right against Yahweh their God; they built high places for themselves in all their towns, from the watchtower up to the fortified city. ¹⁰They set up for themselves stone pillars and poles of Asherah worship on every high hill and under every green tree. ¹¹They burned incense there on all the high places, like the nations which Yahweh deported before them, and they did evil things to provoke Yahweh. ¹²They served idols of which Yahweh had said to them, “You shall not do this thing!” ¹³Yahweh warned Israel and Judah by the hand of his every prophet, with every seer saying, “Turn from all of your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my ordinances, according to all the law which I commanded your ancestors,^e which I sent to you by the hand of my servants the prophets.” ¹⁴But they did not listen and they stiffened their necks, like the necks of their ancestors^f who did not believe in Yahweh their God. ¹⁵They rejected his statutes, his covenant which he made^g with their ancestors,^h and his warnings which he gave to them; and they went after the idols, became vain, and went after all the nations which were all around them, which Yahweh had commanded them not to do as they did. ¹⁶They abandoned all the commands of Yahweh their God and made for themselves two molten calf-shaped idols; they made a pole of Asherah worship and bowed down to the army of the heavens and served Baal. ¹⁷They made their sons and their daughters pass through the fire, they practiced divination and read omens, and they sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of Yahweh to provoke him. ¹⁸So Yahweh was very angry with Israel and he removed them from his presence; none remained except the tribe of Judah alone.

¹⁹Even Judah did not keep the commands of Yahweh their God, and they walked in the customs of Israel which they introduced, ²⁰so Yahweh rejected all the offspring of Israel and punished them, and he gave them into the hand of the plunderers until he banished them from his presence. ²¹For he had torn Israel from the house of David, and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king, but Jeroboam detached Israel from following Yahweh, and he made them sin a great sin. ²²The Israelitesⁱ walked in all the sins of Jeroboam that he committed, and they did not depart from it, ²³until Yahweh removed Israel from his presence as he had foretold by the hand of all his servants, the prophets. And so he deported Israel from upon his land to Assyria until this day.

Israel Repopulated with Foreign Captives

²⁴The king of Assyria brought from Babylonia, from Cush, from Arva, from Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and he settled them in the cities of Samaria in place of the Israelites,^j so they took possession of Samaria and lived in her cities. ²⁵It happened that when they began living there, they did not fear Yahweh, so Yahweh sent lions among them, and they were killing them.^{k 26}So they said to the king of Assyria, “The nations whom you deported and settled in the cities of Samaria do not know the customs of the God of the land, so he sent lions among them, and now they are killing them because they do not know the customs of the God of the land.” ²⁷Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, “Release one of the priests whom you deported from there, and let him go and settle there. Let him teach them the customs of the God of the land.” ²⁸So one of the priests went, whom they had deported from Samaria, and he settled in Bethel and was teaching them how they should fear Yahweh.

²⁹Yet every nation was making their^l gods, and they put them in the shrine of the high places that the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities in which they were living. ³⁰The men of Babylonia made Succoth Benoth; the men of Cuth made Nergal; the men of Hamath made Ashima. ³¹The Arvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; the Sepharvites were burning their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech the gods of Sepharvaim. ³²Those who were fearing Yahweh made priests of the high places from among themselves,^m and they were sacrificing for them in the shrines of the high places. ³³Yahweh they were fearing, but their gods they were serving, according to the customs of the nations from which they were deported.

³⁴Until this day they are doing according to their former customs; none of them are fearing Yahweh, and none of them are doing according to their statutes, to their decisions, to the law, or to the commands that Yahweh commanded the descendantsⁿ of Jacob to whom he had given the name Israel. ³⁵Yahweh had made^o a covenant with them and commanded them, “You shall not fear other gods, nor shall you bow down to them, nor shall you serve them, nor shall you sacrifice to them. ³⁶Rather, Yahweh, who brought you out from the land of Egypt with great strength and with an outstretched arm—him you shall fear, and to him you shall bow down, and to him you shall sacrifice. ³⁷The statutes, the decisions, the law, and the commands that he wrote to you, you shall observe to do always, and you shall not fear other gods. ³⁸The covenant that I have made^p with you,…