^18:13In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, King Sennacherib of Assyria marched up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. ^18:14King Hezekiah of Judah sent this message to the king of Assyria, who was at Lachish, “I have violated our treaty.²¹ If you leave, I will do whatever you demand.”²² So the king of Assyria demanded that King Hezekiah of Judah pay three hundred talents²³ of silver and thirty talents of gold. ^18:15Hezekiah gave him all the silver in²⁴ the Lord’s temple and in the treasuries of the royal palace. ^18:16At that time King Hezekiah of Judah stripped the metal overlays from the doors of the Lord’s temple and from the posts which he had plated²⁵ and gave them to the king of Assyria.

^18:17The king of Assyria sent his commanding general, the chief eunuch, and the chief adviser²⁶ from Lachish to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem,²⁷ along with a large army. They went up and arrived at Jerusalem. They went²⁸ and stood at the conduit of the upper pool which is located on the road to the field where they wash and dry cloth.²⁹^18:18They summoned the king, so Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace supervisor, accompanied by Shebna the scribe and Joah son of Asaph, the secretary, went out to meet them.

^18:19The chief adviser said to them, “Tell Hezekiah: ‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: “What is your source of confidence?³⁰

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Footnotes

21 Or “I have done wrong.”
22 Heb “Return from upon me; what you place upon me, I will carry.”
23 The Hebrew term כִּכָּר (kikkar, “circle”) refers generally to something that is round. When used of metals it can refer to a disk-shaped weight made of the metal or to a standard unit of weight, generally regarded as a talent. Since the accepted weight for a talent of metal is about 75 pounds, this would have amounted to about 22,500 pounds of silver and 2,250 pounds of gold.
24 Heb “that was found.”
25 Heb “At that time Hezekiah stripped the doors of the Lord’s temple, and the posts which Hezekiah king of Judah had plated.”
26 For a discussion of these titles see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (), .
27 For location see ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; .
28 Heb “and they went up and came.”
29 Heb “the field of the washer.”
30 Heb “What is this object of trust in which you are trusting?”