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Today's Bible Reading :: 2 Kings 15 - 17 (ESV)

2 Kings 15Listen to the passage

2 Kings 16Listen to the passage

2 Kings 17Listen to the passage

2 Kings 15

Azariah Reigns in Judah

(2Ch 26:3–23 )
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:1 - In the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Azariah the son of Amaziah, king of Judah, began to reign.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:2 - He was sixteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jecoliah of Jerusalem.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:3 - And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that his father Amaziah had done.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:4 - Nevertheless, the high places were not taken away. The people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:5 - And the LORD touched the king, so that he was a leper[fn] to the day of his death, and he lived in a separate house.[fn] And Jotham the king’s son was over the household, governing the people of the land.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:6 - Now the rest of the acts of Azariah, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:7 - And Azariah slept with his fathers, and they buried him with his fathers in the city of David, and Jotham his son reigned in his place.

Zechariah Reigns in Israel

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:8 - In the thirty-eighth year of Azariah king of Judah, Zechariah the son of Jeroboam reigned over Israel in Samaria six months.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:9 - And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, as his fathers had done. He did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:10 - Shallum the son of Jabesh conspired against him and struck him down at Ibleam and put him to death and reigned in his place.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:11 - Now the rest of the deeds of Zechariah, behold, they are written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:12 - (This was the promise of the LORD that he gave to Jehu, “Your sons shall sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation.” And so it came to pass.)

Shallum Reigns in Israel

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:13 - Shallum the son of Jabesh began to reign in the thirty-ninth year of Uzziah[fn] king of Judah, and he reigned one month in Samaria.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:14 - Then Menahem the son of Gadi came up from Tirzah and came to Samaria, and he struck down Shallum the son of Jabesh in Samaria and put him to death and reigned in his place.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:15 - Now the rest of the deeds of Shallum, and the conspiracy that he made, behold, they are written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:16 - At that time Menahem sacked Tiphsah and all who were in it and its territory from Tirzah on, because they did not open it to him. Therefore he sacked it, and he ripped open all the women in it who were pregnant.

Menahem Reigns in Israel

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:17 - In the thirty-ninth year of Azariah king of Judah, Menahem the son of Gadi began to reign over Israel, and he reigned ten years in Samaria.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:18 - And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. He did not depart all his days from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:19 - Pul[fn] the king of Assyria came against the land, and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents[fn] of silver, that he might help him to confirm his hold on the royal power.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:20 - Menahem exacted the money from Israel, that is, from all the wealthy men, fifty shekels[fn] of silver from every man, to give to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria turned back and did not stay there in the land.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:21 - Now the rest of the deeds of Menahem and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel?
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:22 - And Menahem slept with his fathers, and Pekahiah his son reigned in his place.

Pekahiah Reigns in Israel

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:23 - In the fiftieth year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekahiah the son of Menahem began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and he reigned two years.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:24 - And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. He did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:25 - And Pekah the son of Remaliah, his captain, conspired against him with fifty men of the people of Gilead, and struck him down in Samaria, in the citadel of the king’s house with Argob and Arieh; he put him to death and reigned in his place.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:26 - Now the rest of the deeds of Pekahiah and all that he did, behold, they are written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.

Pekah Reigns in Israel

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:27 - In the fifty-second year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekah the son of Remaliah began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and he reigned twenty years.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:28 - And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. He did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:29 - In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria came and captured Ijon, Abel-beth-maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and he carried the people captive to Assyria.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:30 - Then Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy against Pekah the son of Remaliah and struck him down and put him to death and reigned in his place, in the twentieth year of Jotham the son of Uzziah.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:31 - Now the rest of the acts of Pekah and all that he did, behold, they are written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.

Jotham Reigns in Judah

(2Ch 27:1–9 )
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:32 - In the second year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, Jotham the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, began to reign.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:33 - He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jerusha the daughter of Zadok.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:34 - And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that his father Uzziah had done.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:35 - Nevertheless, the high places were not removed. The people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places. He built the upper gate of the house of the LORD.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:36 - Now the rest of the acts of Jotham and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:37 - In those days the LORD began to send Rezin the king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah against Judah.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 15:38 - Jotham slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David his father, and Ahaz his son reigned in his place.
ESV Footnotes
Leprosy was a term for several skin diseases; see Leviticus 13
The meaning of the Hebrew word is uncertain
Another name for Azariah
Another name for Tiglath-pileser III (compare verse 29)
A talent was about 75 pounds or 34 kilograms
A shekel was about 2/5 ounce or 11 grams

2 Kings 16

Ahaz Reigns in Judah

(2Ch 28:1–27 )
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 16:1 - In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, Ahaz the son of Jotham, king of Judah, began to reign.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 16:2 - Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. And he did not do what was right in the eyes of the LORD his God, as his father David had done,
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 16:3 - but he walked in the way of the kings of Israel. He even burned his son as an offering,[fn] according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 16:4 - And he sacrificed and made offerings on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 16:5 - Then Rezin king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came up to wage war on Jerusalem, and they besieged Ahaz but could not conquer him.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 16:6 - At that time Rezin the king of Syria recovered Elath for Syria and drove the men of Judah from Elath, and the Edomites came to Elath, where they dwell to this day.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 16:7 - So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and rescue me from the hand of the king of Syria and from the hand of the king of Israel, who are attacking me.”
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 16:8 - Ahaz also took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the LORD and in the treasures of the king’s house and sent a present to the king of Assyria.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 16:9 - And the king of Assyria listened to him. The king of Assyria marched up against Damascus and took it, carrying its people captive to Kir, and he killed Rezin.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 16:10 - When King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, he saw the altar that was at Damascus. And King Ahaz sent to Uriah the priest a model of the altar, and its pattern, exact in all its details.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 16:11 - And Uriah the priest built the altar; in accordance with all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus, so Uriah the priest made it, before King Ahaz arrived from Damascus.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 16:12 - And when the king came from Damascus, the king viewed the altar. Then the king drew near to the altar and went up on it
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 16:13 - and burned his burnt offering and his grain offering and poured his drink offering and threw the blood of his peace offerings on the altar.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 16:14 - And the bronze altar that was before the LORD he removed from the front of the house, from the place between his altar and the house of the LORD, and put it on the north side of his altar.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 16:15 - And King Ahaz commanded Uriah the priest, saying, “On the great altar burn the morning burnt offering and the evening grain offering and the king’s burnt offering and his grain offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land, and their grain offering and their drink offering. And throw on it all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of the sacrifice, but the bronze altar shall be for me to inquire by.”
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 16:16 - Uriah the priest did all this, as King Ahaz commanded.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 16:17 - And King Ahaz cut off the frames of the stands and removed the basin from them, and he took down the sea[fn] from off the bronze oxen that were under it and put it on a stone pedestal.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 16:18 - And the covered way for the Sabbath that had been built inside the house and the outer entrance for the king he caused to go around the house of the LORD, because of the king of Assyria.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 16:19 - Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 16:20 - And Ahaz slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David, and Hezekiah his son reigned in his place.
ESV Footnotes
Or made his son pass through the fire
Compare 1 Kings 7:23

2 Kings 17

Hoshea Reigns in Israel

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:1 - In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel, and he reigned nine years.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:2 - And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, yet not as the kings of Israel who were before him.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:3 - Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria. And Hoshea became his vassal and paid him tribute.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:4 - But the king of Assyria found treachery in Hoshea, for he had sent messengers to So, king of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:5 - Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria, and for three years he besieged it.

The Fall of Israel

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:6 - In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

Exile Because of Idolatry

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:7 - And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:8 - and walked in the customs of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:9 - And the people of Israel did secretly against the LORD their God things that were not right. They built for themselves high places in all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:10 - They set up for themselves pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree,
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:11 - and there they made offerings on all the high places, as the nations did whom the LORD carried away before them. And they did wicked things, provoking the LORD to anger,
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:12 - and they served idols, of which the LORD had said to them, “You shall not do this.”
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:13 - Yet the LORD warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the Law that I commanded your fathers, and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets.”
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:14 - But they would not listen, but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the LORD their God.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:15 - They despised his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after false idols and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the LORD had commanded them that they should not do like them.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:16 - And they abandoned all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made for themselves metal images of two calves; and they made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:17 - And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings[fn] and used divination and omens and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:18 - Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight. None was left but the tribe of Judah only.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:19 - Judah also did not keep the commandments of the LORD their God, but walked in the customs that Israel had introduced.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:20 - And the LORD rejected all the descendants of Israel and afflicted them and gave them into the hand of plunderers, until he had cast them out of his sight.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:21 - When he had torn Israel from the house of David, they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king. And Jeroboam drove Israel from following the LORD and made them commit great sin.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:22 - The people of Israel walked in all the sins that Jeroboam did. They did not depart from them,
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:23 - until the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, as he had spoken by all his servants the prophets. So Israel was exiled from their own land to Assyria until this day.

Assyria Resettles Samaria

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:24 - And the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the people of Israel. And they took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:25 - And at the beginning of their dwelling there, they did not fear the LORD. Therefore the LORD sent lions among them, which killed some of them.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:26 - So the king of Assyria was told, “The nations that you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the law of the god of the land. Therefore he has sent lions among them, and behold, they are killing them, because they do not know the law of the god of the land.”
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:27 - Then the king of Assyria commanded, “Send there one of the priests whom you carried away from there, and let him[fn] go and dwell there and teach them the law of the god of the land.”
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:28 - So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and lived in Bethel and taught them how they should fear the LORD.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:29 - But every nation still made gods of its own and put them in the shrines of the high places that the Samaritans had made, every nation in the cities in which they lived.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:30 - The men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, the men of Cuth made Nergal, the men of Hamath made Ashima,
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:31 - and the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:32 - They also feared the LORD and appointed from among themselves all sorts of people as priests of the high places, who sacrificed for them in the shrines of the high places.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:33 - So they feared the LORD but also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:34 - To this day they do according to the former manner. They do not fear the LORD, and they do not follow the statutes or the rules or the law or the commandment that the LORD commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:35 - The LORD made a covenant with them and commanded them, “You shall not fear other gods or bow yourselves to them or serve them or sacrifice to them,
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:36 - but you shall fear the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm. You shall bow yourselves to him, and to him you shall sacrifice.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:37 - And the statutes and the rules and the law and the commandment that he wrote for you, you shall always be careful to do. You shall not fear other gods,
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:38 - and you shall not forget the covenant that I have made with you. You shall not fear other gods,
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:39 - but you shall fear the LORD your God, and he will deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies.”
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:40 - However, they would not listen, but they did according to their former manner.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 17:41 - So these nations feared the LORD and also served their carved images. Their children did likewise, and their children’s children—as their fathers did, so they do to this day.
ESV Footnotes
Or made their sons and their daughters pass through the fire
Syriac, Vulgate; Hebrew them
ESV

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001, 2007, 2011, 2016, 2025 by Crossway Books and Bibles, a Publishing Ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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For more information on this translation, see the ESV Preface.

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