Sennacherib’s Invasion

¹³ In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Assyria’s King Sennacherib attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.^{(A) 14} So King Hezekiah of Judah sent word to the king of Assyria at Lachish:^(B) “I have done wrong;^(C) withdraw from me. Whatever you demand from me, I will pay.” The king of Assyria demanded eleven tons^[a] of silver and one ton^[b] of gold from King Hezekiah of Judah. ¹⁵ So Hezekiah gave him all the silver found in the Lord’s temple and in the treasuries of the king’s palace.

¹⁶ At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the Lord’s sanctuary and from the doorposts he had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria.^(D)

The Earth Judged

Ezekiel Dramatizes Jerusalem’s Fall

5 “Now you, son of man, take a sharp sword,^(A) use it as you would a barber’s razor, and shave your head and beard. Then take a set of scales and divide the hair. ² You are to burn a third of it in the city when the days of the siege have ended;^(B) you are to take a third and slash it with the sword all around the city; and you are to scatter a third to the wind, for I will draw a sword to chase after them. ³ But you are to take a few strands from the hair and secure them in the folds of your robe.^{(C) 4} Take some more of them, throw them into the fire, and burn them in it.^(D) A fire will spread from it to the whole house of Israel.