¹³ In King Hezekiah’s fourteenth year, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and seized them. ¹⁴ Then Hezekiah king of Judah sent a message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: “I have done wrong. Withdraw from me. Whatever you impose on me I will pay.” Then the king of Assyria imposed on Hezekiah a penalty of three hundred talents^[a] of silver and thirty talents^[b] of gold. ¹⁵ So Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the Lord’s house and in the treasuries of the king’s house. ¹⁶ At this time, Hezekiah stripped the gold off the doors of the temple of the Lord and off the doorposts, which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid with gold, and he gave it to the king of Assyria.

The Assyrian Commander Taunts Hezekiah

¹⁷ Then the king of Assyria sent the field commander, the chief of staff, and the herald^[c] from Lachish with a large army against King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They came up to Jerusalem and stood by the watercourse from the upper pool, which is on the way to the washerman’s field. ¹⁸ They summoned the king, so Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was the palace administrator, Shebna, who was the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, who was the recorder, went out to meet them.