The king of Assyria marched through<n id="1" /> the whole land. He attacked Samaria and besieged it for three years.

Then Elisha<n id="1" /> said, &#8220;Take the arrows,&#8221; and he did so.<n id="2" /> He told the king of Israel, &#8220;Strike the ground!&#8221; He struck the ground three times and stopped.

<t /><p class="bodytext">In the third year of the reign of Israel&#8217;s King Hoshea son of Elah, Ahaz&#8217;s son Hezekiah became king over Judah.

After three years he captured it (in the sixth year of Hezekiah&#8217;s reign); in the ninth year of King Hoshea&#8217;s reign over Israel Samaria was captured.

<p class="bodytext">During Jehoiakim&#8217;s reign,<n id="1" /> King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon attacked.<n id="2" /> Jehoiakim was his subject for three years, but then he rebelled against him.<n id="3" />

The prophet<n id="1" /> got angry at him and said, &#8220;If you had struck the ground five or six times, you would have annihilated Syria!<n id="2" /> But now, you will defeat Syria only three times.&#8221;p>

Jehoahaz&#8217;s son Jehoash took back from<n id="1" /> Ben Hadad son of Hazael the cities that he had taken from his father Jehoahaz in war. Joash defeated him three times and recovered the Israelite cities.p>

Each of the pillars was about twenty-seven feet<n id="1" /> high. The bronze top of one pillar was about four and a half feet<n id="2" /> high and had bronze latticework and pomegranate shaped ornaments all around it. The second pillar with its latticework was like it.p>

King Hezekiah of Judah sent this message to the king of Assyria, who was at Lachish, &#8220;I have violated our treaty.<n id="1" /> If you leave, I will do whatever you demand.&#8221;<n id="2" /> So the king of Assyria demanded that King Hezekiah of Judah pay three hundred talents<n id="3" /> of silver and thirty talents of gold.