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 the Lord his God, as his father David 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 the Lord had ¹driven out from before the sons of Israel.

⁴He ^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, came up to Jerusalem to wage war; and they besieged Ahaz, ^bbut could not ¹overcome him.

⁶At that time Rezin king of Aram recovered ^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 Seeks Help of Aram

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

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

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

Damascus Falls

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 ¹pattern of the altar and its model, 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.

¹²When the king came from Damascus, the king saw the altar; then ^athe king approached the altar and ¹went up to it,

¹³and ¹burned his burnt offering and his meal offering, and poured his drink offering and sprinkled the blood of his peace offerings on the altar.

^14aThe bronze altar, which was before the Lord, ¹he brought from the front of the house, from between ^bhis altar and the house of the Lord, and he put it on the north side of his altar.

¹⁵Then King Ahaz ¹commanded Urijah the priest, saying, “Upon the great altar ²burn ^athe morning burnt offering and the evening meal offering and the king’s burnt offering and his meal offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land and their meal offering and their drink offerings; and sprinkle 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.

¹⁸The 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 the Lord 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 his son Hezekiah reigned 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.

²He did evil in the sight of the Lord, only not as the kings of Israel who were before him.

^3aShalmaneser king of Assyria came 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; so the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison.

⁵Then the king of Assyria invaded the whole land and went up to ^aSamaria and besieged it three years.

Israel Captive

⁶In the ninth year of Hoshea, ^athe king of Assyria captured Samaria and ^bcarried 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.

Why Israel Fell

⁷Now ^athis came about because the sons of Israel had sinned against the Lord 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 ¹customs of the nations whom the Lord had driven out before the sons of Israel, and in the customs ^bof the kings of Israel which they had ²introduced.

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

^10aThey 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 the Lord had carried away to exile before them; and they did evil things provoking the Lord.

¹²They served idols, ^aconcerning which the Lord had said to them, “You shall not do this thing.”

¹³Yet the ^aLord warned Israel and Judah ^bthrough 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 through My servants the prophets.”

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

^15aThey rejected His statutes and ^bHis covenant which He made 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 the ^eLord had commanded them not to do like them.

¹⁶They forsook all the commandments of the Lord 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 enchantments, and ^csold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking Him.

¹⁸So the Lord was very angry with Israel and ^aremoved them from His ¹sight; ^bnone was left except the tribe of Judah.

¹⁹Also ^aJudah did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God, but ^bwalked in the ¹customs ²which Israel had ³introduced.

²⁰The Lord rejected all the ¹descendants of Israel and afflicted them and ^agave them into the hand of plunderers, until He had cast them ²out of His sight.

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 the Lord and made them ¹commit a great sin.

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

^23auntil the Lord removed Israel from His sight, ^bas He spoke through all His servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away into exile from their own land to Assyria until this day.

Cities of Israel Filled with Strangers

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

²⁵At the beginning of their living there, they ^adid not fear the Lord; therefore the Lord sent lions among them which killed some of them.

²⁶So they spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, “The nations whom you have carried away into exile 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 kill them 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 carried away into ¹exile and let ²him go and live there; and let him teach them the custom of the god of the land.”

²⁸So one of the priests whom they had carried away into exile from Samaria came and lived at Bethel, and taught them how they should fear the Lord.

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

^30aThe 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 ^cSepharvaim.

^32aThey also feared the Lord and ^1bappointed from among themselves priests of the high places, who acted for them in the houses of the high places.

³³They feared the Lord and served their own gods according to the custom of the nations from among whom they had been carried away into exile.

³⁴To this day they do according to the earlier customs: they do not fear the Lord, nor do they ¹follow their statutes or their ordinances or the law, or the commandments which the Lord commanded the sons of Jacob, ^awhom He named Israel;

³⁵with whom the Lord made a covenant and commanded them, saying, “^aYou shall not fear other gods, nor ^bbow down yourselves to them nor ^cserve them nor sacrifice to them.

³⁶“But the Lord, ^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 bow yourselves down, and to Him you shall sacrifice.

³⁷“The statutes and the ordinances and the law and the commandment which He wrote for you, ^ayou shall observe to do forever; and you shall not fear other gods.

³⁸“The covenant that I…