(At that time King Rezin of Syria<n id="1" /> recovered Elat for Syria; he drove the Judahites from there.<n id="2" /> Syrians<n id="3" /> arrived in Elat and live there to this very day.)

He eliminated the high places, smashed the sacred pillars to bits, and cut down the Asherah pole.<n id="1" /> He also demolished the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for up to that time<n id="2" /> the Israelites had been offering incense to it; it was called Nehushtan.<n id="3" />

<p class="bodytext">In the fourth year of King Hezekiah&#8217;s reign (it was the seventh year of the reign of Israel&#8217;s King Hoshea, son of Elah), King Shalmaneser of Assyria marched<n id="1" /> up against Samaria<n id="2" /> and besieged it.

Perhaps you will tell me, &#8216;We are trusting in the <sc>Lordsc> our God.&#8217; But Hezekiah is the one who eliminated his high places and altars and then told the people of Judah and Jerusalem, &#8216;You must worship at this altar in Jerusalem.&#8217;

Hezekiah prayed before the <sc>Lordsc>: &#8220;<sc>Lordsc> God of Israel, who is enthroned on the cherubs!<n id="1" /> You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the sky<n id="2" /> and the earth.

<p class="bodytext">That very night the <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s messenger went out and killed 185,000 men in the Assyrian camp. When they<n id="1" /> got up early the next morning, there were all the corpses.<n id="2" />

One day,<n id="1" /> as he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch,<n id="2" /> his sons<n id="3" /> Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword.<n id="4" /> They escaped to the land of Ararat; his son Esarhaddon replaced him as king.p>

<p class="bodytext">So Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Acbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shullam son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, the supervisor of the wardrobe.<n id="1" /> (She lived in Jerusalem in the Mishneh<n id="2" /> district.) They stated their business,<n id="3" />

<p class="bodytext">He also tore down the altar in Bethel<n id="1" /> at the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who encouraged Israel to sin.<n id="2" /> He burned all the combustible items at that high place and crushed them to dust; including the Asherah pole.<n id="3" />

King Jehoiachin of Judah, along with his mother, his servants, his officials, and his eunuchs surrendered<n id="1" /> to the king of Babylon. The king of Babylon, in the eighth year of his reign,<n id="2" /> took Jehoiachin<n id="3" /> prisoner.

So King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came against Jerusalem with his whole army and set up camp outside<n id="1" /> it. They built siege ramps all around it. He arrived on the tenth day of the tenth month in the ninth year of Zedekiah&#8217;s reign.<n id="2" />

<t /><p class="bodytext">On the seventh<n id="1" /> day of the fifth month,<n id="2" /> in the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard<n id="3" /> who served the king of Babylon, arrived in Jerusalem.<n id="4" />

<p class="bodytext">Now Elisha was sitting in his house with the community leaders.<n id="1" /> The king<n id="2" /> sent a messenger on ahead, but before he arrived,<n id="3" /> Elisha<n id="4" /> said to the leaders,<n id="5" /> &#8220;Do you realize this assassin intends to cut off my head?&#8221;<n id="6" /> Look, when the messenger arrives, shut the door and lean against it. His master will certainly be right behind him.&#8221;<n id="7" />

While Gehazi<n id="1" /> was telling the king how Elisha<n id="2" /> had brought the dead back to life, the woman whose son he had brought back to life came to ask the king for her house and field.<n id="3" /> Gehazi said, &#8220;My master, O king, this is the very woman and this is her son whom Elisha brought back to life!&#8221;

King Joram returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds he received from the Syrians<n id="1" /> in Ramah when he fought against King Hazael of Syria. King Ahaziah son of Jehoram of Judah went down to visit<n id="2" /> Joram son of Ahab in Jezreel, for he was ill.p>

&#8220;Go, seek an oracle from<n id="1" /> the <sc>Lordsc> for me and the people &#8211; for all Judah. Find out about<n id="2" /> the words of this scroll that has been discovered. For the <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s fury has been ignited against us,<n id="3" /> because our ancestors have not obeyed the words of this scroll by doing all that it instructs us to do.&#8221;<n id="4" />p>

From the city he took a eunuch who was in charge of the soldiers, five<n id="1" /> of the king&#8217;s advisers<n id="2" /> who were discovered in the city, an official army secretary who drafted citizens<n id="3" /> for military service, and sixty citizens from the people of the land who were discovered in the city.