9. During the fourth year of Hezekiah’s reign, which was the seventh year of King Hoshea’s reign in Israel, King Shalmaneser of Assyria attacked the city of Samaria and began a siege against it.
10. Three years later, during the sixth year of King Hezekiah’s reign and the ninth year of King Hoshea’s reign in Israel, Samaria fell.
11. At that time the king of Assyria exiled the Israelites to Assyria and placed them in colonies in Halah, along the banks of the Habor River in Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
12. For they refused to listen to the lord their God and obey him. Instead, they violated his covenant—all the laws that Moses the lord’s servant had commanded them to obey.
13. In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, King Sennacherib of Assyria came to attack the fortified towns of Judah and conquered them.
14. King Hezekiah sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: “I have done wrong. I will pay whatever tribute money you demand if you will only withdraw.” The king of Assyria then demanded a settlement of more than eleven tons of silver and one ton of gold.
15. To gather this amount, King Hezekiah used all the silver stored in the Temple of the lord and in the palace treasury.
16. Hezekiah even stripped the gold from the doors of the lord’s Temple and from the doorposts he had overlaid with gold, and he gave it all to the Assyrian king.
17. Nevertheless, the king of Assyria sent his commander in chief, his field commander, and his chief of staff from Lachish with a huge army to confront King Hezekiah in Jerusalem. The Assyrians took up a position beside the aqueduct that feeds water into the upper pool, near the road leading to the field where cloth is washed.
18. They summoned King Hezekiah, but the king sent these officials to meet with them: Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace administrator; Shebna the court secretary; and Joah son of Asaph, the royal historian.
19. Then the Assyrian king’s chief of staff told them to give this message to Hezekiah:“This is what the great king of Assyria says: What are you trusting in that makes you so confident?
20. Do you think that mere words can substitute for military skill and strength? Who are you counting on, that you have rebelled against me?