This is what the king says: &#8216;Don&#8217;t let Hezekiah mislead you, for he is not able to rescue you from my hand!<n id="1" />

Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?<n id="1" /> Indeed, did any gods rescue Samaria<n id="2" /> from my power?<n id="3" />

The people were silent and did not respond, for the king had ordered, &#8220;Don&#8217;t respond to him.&#8221;p>

<p class="bodytext">When the chief adviser heard the king of Assyria had departed from Lachish, he left and went to Libnah, where the king was campaigning.<n id="1" />

Certainly you have heard how the kings of Assyria have annihilated all lands.<n id="1" /> Do you really think you will be rescued?<n id="2" />

<p class="bodytext">Hezekiah took the letter<n id="1" /> from the messengers and read it.<n id="2" /> Then Hezekiah went up to the <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s temple and spread it out before the <sc>Lordsc>.

Pay attention, <sc>Lordsc>, and hear! Open your eyes, <sc>Lordsc>, and observe! Listen to the message Sennacherib sent and how he taunts the living God!<n id="1" />

They have burned the gods of the nations,<n id="1" /> for they are not really gods, but only the product of human hands manufactured from wood and stone. That is why the Assyrians could destroy them.<n id="2" />

<p class="poetry">Whom have you taunted and hurled insults at?p> <p class="poetry">At whom have you shouted,<n id="1" />p> <p class="poetry">and looked so arrogantly?<n id="2" />p> <p class="poetry">At the Holy One of Israel!<n id="3" />p>

<n id="1" /><p class="poetry">Certainly you must have heard!<n id="2" />p> <p class="poetry">Long ago I worked it out,p> <p class="poetry">In ancient times I planned<n id="3" /> it;p> <p class="poetry">and now I am bringing it to pass.p> <p class="poetry">The plan is this:p> <p class="poetry">Fortified cities will crashp> <p class="poetry">into heaps of ruins.<n id="4" />p>

&#8220;Please, <sc>Lordsc>. Remember how I have served you<n id="1" /> faithfully and with wholehearted devotion,<n id="2" /> and how I have carried out your will.&#8221;<n id="3" /> Then Hezekiah wept bitterly.<n id="4" />p>

Isaiah the prophet called out to the <sc>Lordsc>, and the <sc>Lordsc><n id="1" /> made the shadow go back ten steps on the stairs of Ahaz.<n id="2" />p>

Isaiah<n id="1" /> asked, &#8220;What have they seen in your palace?&#8221; Hezekiah replied, &#8220;They have seen everything in my palace. I showed them everything<n id="2" /> in my treasuries.&#8221;

He passed his son<n id="1" /> through the fire<n id="2" /> and practiced divination and omen reading. He set up a ritual pit to conjure up underworld spirits, and appointed magicians to supervise it.<n id="3" /> He did a great amount of evil in the sight of the <sc>Lordsc>, provoking him to anger.<n id="4" />

But they did not obey,<n id="1" /> and Manasseh misled them so that they sinned more than the nations whom the <sc>Lordsc> had destroyed from before the Israelites.p>

He followed in the footsteps of his father<n id="1" /> and worshiped and bowed down to the disgusting idols<n id="2" /> which his father had worshiped.<n id="3" />

<p class="bodytext">In the eighteenth year of King Josiah&#8217;s reign, the king sent the scribe Shaphan son of Azaliah, son of Meshullam, to the <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s temple with these orders:<n id="1" />

and she said to them: &#8220;This is what the <sc>Lordsc> God of Israel says: &#8216;Say this to the man who sent you to me:

He tore down the quarters<n id="1" /> of the male cultic prostitutes in the <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s temple, where women were weaving shrines<n id="2" /> for Asherah.p>

<p class="bodytext">The king ordered all the people, &#8220;Observe the Passover of the <sc>Lordsc> your God, as prescribed in this scroll of the covenant.&#8221;