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.