1. Hezekiah, Ahaz’s son, became king of Judah in the third year of Israel’s King Hoshea, Elah’s son.
2. He was 25 years old when he became king, and he ruled twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi; she was Zechariah’s daughter.
3. Hezekiah did what was right in the Lord’s eyes, just as his ancestor David had done.
4. He removed the shrines. He smashed the sacred pillars and cut down the sacred pole. He crushed the bronze snake that Moses made, because up to that point the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (The snake was named Nehushtan.)
5. Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, Israel’s God. There was no one like him among all of Judah’s kings—not before him and not after him.
6. He clung to the Lord and never deviated from him. He kept the commandments that the Lord had commanded Moses.
7. The Lord was with Hezekiah; he succeeded at everything he tried. He rebelled against Assyria’s king and wouldn’t serve him.
8. He struck down the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territories, from watchtower to fortified city.
9. Assyria’s King Shalmaneser marched against Samaria and attacked it in the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Israel’s King Hoshea, Elah’s son.
10. After three years the Assyrians captured the city. Samaria was captured in Hezekiah’s sixth year, which was Hoshea’s ninth year.
11. Assyria’s king sent Israel into exile to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River, and in the cities of the Medes.
12. All this happened because they wouldn’t listen to the Lord their God. They broke his covenant—all that the Lord’s servant Moses had commanded them. They didn’t listen, and they didn’t do it.
13. Assyria’s King Sennacherib marched against all of Judah’s fortified cities and captured them in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah.
14. Judah’s King Hezekiah sent a message to the Assyrian king at Lachish, saying, "I admit wrongdoing. Please withdraw from me, and I’ll agree to whatever you demand from me." Assyria’s king required Judah’s King Hezekiah to pay him three hundred kikkars of silver and thirty kikkars of gold.