1 Now it came to pass in the third year of Hosea, son of Elah, king of Israel, that Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. 2 He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name also was Abi, the daughter of Zachariah. 3 And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that David, his father, did. 4 He removed the high places and broke the images and cut down the groves and broke in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made; for unto those days, the sons of Israel burned incense to it; and he called it Nehushtan. {Heb. a thing of brass} 5 He trusted in the LORD God of Israel; so that neither after him nor before was there any like him among all the kings of Judah. 6 For he cleaved unto the LORD and did not depart from following him, but kept his commandments which the LORD commanded Moses. 7 And the LORD was with him, and he prospered in all things in which he went forth; and he rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him. 8 He smote the Philistines, even unto Gaza and the borders thereof, from the towers of the watchmen to the fenced city.
9 And in the fourth year of king Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hosea, son of Elah, king of Israel, Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, came up against Samaria and besieged it. 10 And at the end of three years, they took it; even in the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is the ninth year of Hosea, king of Israel, Samaria was taken. 11 And the king of Assyria carried away Israel unto Assyria and put them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan and in the cities of the Medes: 12 because they had not hearkened unto the voice of the LORD their God, but had broken his covenant and all that Moses, the slave of the LORD, commanded and would not hear them nor do them.