Study Desk

Then the king said to Hazael, Take an offering with you, and go to see the man of God and get directions from the Lord by him, saying, Am I going to get better from my disease?

And he kept his eyes fixed on him till he was shamed, and the man of God was overcome with weeping.

And he got up and went into the house; then he put the holy oil on his head and said to him, The Lord, the God of Israel, says, I have made you king over the people of the Lord, over Israel.

Then the man of God was angry with him and said, If you had done it five or six times, then you would have overcome Aram completely; but now you will only overcome them three times.

Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king; he was ruling for sixteen years in Jerusalem. He did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God, as David his father did.

And the wrath of the Lord came on Israel because they had done evil against the Lord their God, who took them out of the land of Egypt from under the yoke of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and had become worshippers of other gods,

And the children of Israel did secretly against the Lord their God things which were not right, building high places for themselves in all their towns, from the tower of the watchmen to the walled town.

And they did not give ear, but became stiff-necked, like their fathers who had no faith in the Lord their God.

(But even Judah did not keep the orders of the Lord their God, but were guided by the rules which Israel had made.

So they said to the king of Assyria, The nations whom you have taken as prisoners and put in the towns of Samaria, have no knowledge of the way of the god of the land: so he has sent lions among them, causing their death, because they have no knowledge of his way.

Then the king of Assyria gave orders, saying, Send there one of the priests whom you took away, and let him be living there and teaching the people the way of the god of the land.

But the Lord, who took you out of the land of Egypt with his great power and his outstretched arm, he is your God, to whom you are to give worship and make offerings:

And you are to give worship to the Lord your God; for it is he who will give you salvation from the hands of all who are against you.

He had faith in the Lord, the God of Israel; so that there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah who were before him.

Because they did not give ear to the voice of the Lord their God, but went against his agreement, even against everything ordered by Moses, the servant of the Lord, and they did not give ear to it or do it.

And if you say to me, Our hope is in the Lord our God: is it not he, whose high places and altars Hezekiah has taken away, saying to Judah and Jerusalem that worship may only be given before this altar in Jerusalem?

It may be that the Lord your God will give ear to the words of the Rab-shakeh, whom the king of Assyria, his master, sent to say evil things against the living God, and will make his words come to nothing: so then make your prayer for the rest of the people.

This is what you are to say to Hezekiah, king of Judah: Let not your God, in whom is your faith, give you a false hope, saying, Jerusalem will not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria.

And Hezekiah made his prayer to the Lord, saying, O Lord, the God of Israel, seated between the winged ones, you only are the God of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth.

Let your ear be turned to us, O Lord, and let your eyes be open, O Lord, and see; take note of all the words of Sennacherib who has sent men to say evil against the living God.