2 Kings 16–20

CHAPTER 16

Ahaz Reigns over Judah

¹In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, ^aAhaz the son of Jotham, king of Judah, became king.

^2aAhaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem; and he did not do what was right in the sight of Yahweh his God, as David his father had done.

³But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, ^aand even made his son pass through the fire, ^baccording to the abominations of the nations whom Yahweh had dispossessed from before the sons of Israel.

⁴He also ^asacrificed and burned incense on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.

⁵Then ^aRezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to wage war; and they besieged Ahaz, ^bbut could not ¹overcome him.

⁶At that time Rezin king of Aram restored ^aElath for Aram and cleared the Judeans out of ¹Elath entirely; and the ²Arameans came to Elath and have lived there to this day.

Ahaz Sends for Help from Assyria

^7aSo Ahaz sent messengers to ^bTiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son; come up and save me from the ¹hand of the king of Aram and from the ²hand of the king of Israel, who are rising up against me.”

^8aAhaz also took the silver and gold that was found in the house of Yahweh and in the treasuries of the king’s house, and sent a gift to the king of Assyria.

^9aSo the king of Assyria listened to him; and the king of Assyria went up against Damascus and ^bseized it and took the people of it away into exile to ^cKir, and put Rezin to death.

Ahaz Has Urijah Build an Altar

¹⁰Now King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet ^aTiglath-pileser king of Assyria and saw the altar which was at Damascus; and King Ahaz sent to ^bUrijah the priest the likeness of the altar and its pattern, according to all its workmanship.

¹¹So Urijah the priest built an altar; according to all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus, thus Urijah the priest made it, ¹before the coming of King Ahaz from Damascus.

¹²So the king came from Damascus, and the king saw the altar; then ^athe king drew near the altar and ¹made offerings on it,

¹³and offered his burnt offering and his meal offering up in smoke, and poured his drink offering and splashed the blood of his peace offerings on the altar.

^14aNow as for the bronze altar, which was before Yahweh, ¹he drew it away from the front of the house, from between ^bhis altar and the house of Yahweh, and he put it on the north side of his altar.

¹⁵Then King Ahaz ¹commanded Urijah the priest, saying, “Upon the great altar offer up in smoke ^athe 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 offerings; and splash on it all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of the sacrifice. But ^bthe bronze altar shall be for me to inquire by.”

¹⁶So Urijah the priest did according to all that King Ahaz commanded.

¹⁷Then King Ahaz ^acut off the borders of the stands and removed the laver from them; he also ^btook down the sea from the bronze oxen which were under it and put it on a pavement of stone.

¹⁸And the covered way for the sabbath which they had built in the house, and the outer entry of the king, he removed from the house of Yahweh because of the king of Assyria.

Hezekiah Reigns over Judah

¹⁹Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz which he did, are they not written ^ain the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

²⁰So ^aAhaz slept with his fathers and ^bwas buried with his fathers in the city of David; and Hezekiah his son became king in his place.

CHAPTER 17

Hoshea Reigns over Israel

¹In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, ^aHoshea the son of Elah became king over Israel in Samaria and reigned nine years.

²And he did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh, only not as the kings of Israel who were before him.

^3aShalmaneser king of Assyria went up ^bagainst him, and Hoshea became his servant and paid him tribute.

⁴But the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea, who had sent messengers to So king of Egypt and had 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 went up against the whole land and he went up to ^aSamaria and besieged it three years.

Israel Exiled to Assyria

⁶In the ninth year of Hoshea, ^athe king of Assyria captured Samaria and ^btook Israel away into exile to Assyria, and ^csettled them in Halah and Habor, on the river of ^dGozan, and ^ein the cities of the Medes.

Israel Rejects Yahweh

⁷Now ^athis happened because the sons of Israel had sinned against Yahweh their God—^bwho had brought them up from the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt—^cand they had ¹feared other gods

⁸and ^awalked in the statutes of the nations whom Yahweh had dispossessed from before the sons of Israel, and in the statutes ^bof the kings of Israel which they had made.

⁹And the sons of Israel ¹did things secretly which were not right against Yahweh their God. Moreover, they built for themselves high places in all their cities, from ^awatchtower to fortified city.

^10aAnd they set for themselves sacred pillars and ^1bAsherim on every high hill and under every green tree,

¹¹and there they burned incense on all the high places as the nations did which Yahweh had taken away into exile before them; and they did evil things provoking Yahweh to anger.

¹²And they served idols, ^aconcerning which Yahweh had said to them, “You shall not do this thing.”

¹³Yet ^aYahweh warned Israel and Judah ^bby the hand of all His prophets and ^cevery seer, saying, “^dTurn from your evil ways and keep My commandments, My statutes according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by the hand of My slaves the prophets.”

¹⁴However, they did not listen, but ^astiffened their neck ¹like their fathers, who did not believe in Yahweh their God.

^15aThey also rejected His statutes and ^bHis covenant which He cut with their fathers and His warnings with which He warned them. And ^cthey followed vanity and ^dbecame vain, and went after the nations which surrounded them, concerning which ^eYahweh had commanded them not to do like them.

¹⁶And they forsook all the commandments of Yahweh their God and made for themselves molten images, even ^atwo calves, and ^bmade an ¹Asherah and ^cworshiped all the host of heaven and ^dserved Baal.

¹⁷Then ^athey made their sons and their daughters pass through the fire, and ^bpracticed divination and omens, and ^csold themselves to do what is evil in the sight of Yahweh, provoking Him to anger.

¹⁸So Yahweh was very angry with Israel and ^acaused them to depart from His ¹presence; ^bnone was left except the tribe of Judah alone.

¹⁹Also ^aJudah did not keep the commandments of Yahweh their God, but ^bwalked in the statutes ¹which Israel had made.

²⁰So Yahweh rejected all the seed of Israel and afflicted them and ^agave them into the hand of plunderers, until He had cast them ¹from His presence.

²¹When ^aHe had torn Israel from the house of David, ^bthey made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king. Then ^cJeroboam drove Israel away from following Yahweh and made them sin a great sin.

²²And the sons of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they did not depart from them

^23auntil Yahweh caused Israel to depart from His presence, ^bas He spoke through all His slaves the prophets. ^cSo Israel went into exile from their own land to Assyria until this day.

Exiled Men in the Cities of Samaria

^24aAnd the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon and from Cuthah and from ^1bAvva and from ^cHamath and Sepharvaim, and settled them in the cities of Samaria in place of the sons of Israel. So they possessed Samaria and lived in its cities.

²⁵Now it happened at the beginning of their settlement there, that they ^adid not fear Yahweh; therefore Yahweh sent lions among them which were killing them.

²⁶So they spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, “The nations whom you have taken away into exile and settled in the cities of Samaria do not know the custom of the god of the land; so he has sent lions among them, and behold, they are putting them to death because they do not know the custom of the god of the land.”

²⁷Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, “Take there one of the priests whom you took away into ¹exile and let ²him go and live there; and let him instruct them the custom of the god of the land.”

²⁸So one of the priests whom they had taken away into exile from Samaria came and settled at Bethel, and instructed them how they should fear Yahweh.

²⁹But each nation was still making gods of its own and put them ^ain the houses of the high places which the people of Samaria had made, each nation in their cities in which they lived.

^30aAnd the men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, the men of Cuth made Nergal, the men of Hamath made Ashima,

³¹and the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; and ^athe Sepharvites burned their children in the fire to ^bAdrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of the ^cSepharvaim.

^32aThey were also fearing Yahweh and ^1bappointed from among all of themselves priests of the high places, and they were acting for them in the houses of the high places.

³³They were fearing Yahweh and serving their own gods according to the custom of the nations from among whom they had been taken away into exile.

³⁴To this day they are acting according to the earlier customs: they are not fearing Yahweh; they are not acting according to their statutes or their judgments or the law, or the commandment which Yahweh commanded the sons of Jacob, ^awhom He named Israel;

³⁵with whom Yahweh cut a covenant and commanded them, saying, “^aYou shall not fear other gods, nor ^bworship them nor ^cserve them nor sacrifice to them.

³⁶“But Yahweh, ^awho brought you up from the land of Egypt with great power and with ^ban outstretched arm, ^cHim you shall fear, and to Him you shall worship, and to Him you…