אֶ֫רֶץ

So they spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, “The peoples that you have removed and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the requirements of the God of the land. Because of this, He has sent lions among them, which are indeed killing them off.”

Then the king of Assyria commanded: “Send back one of the priests you carried off from Samaria, and have him go back to live there and teach the requirements of the God of the land.”

Instead, worship the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt with great power and an outstretched arm. You are to bow down to Him and offer sacrifices to Him.

So now, was it apart from the LORD that I have come up against this place to destroy it? The LORD Himself said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it.’”

…until I come and take you away to a land like your own—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey—so that you may live and not die. But do not listen to Hezekiah, for he misleads you when he says, ‘The LORD will deliver us.’

Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?

Who among all the gods of these lands has delivered his land from my hand? How then can the LORD deliver Jerusalem from my hand?”

Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he will hear a rumor and return to his own land, where I will cause him to fall by the sword.’”

Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the other countries, devoting them to destruction. Will you then be spared?

And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD: “O LORD, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the heavens and the earth.

Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste these nations and their lands.

And now, O LORD our God, please save us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, O LORD, are God.”

One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer put him to the sword and escaped to the land of Ararat. And his son Esar-haddon reigned in his place.

Then the prophet Isaiah went to King Hezekiah and asked, “Where did those men come from, and what did they say to you?” “They came from a distant land,” Hezekiah replied, “from Babylon.”

But the people of the land killed all those who had conspired against King Amon, and they made his son Josiah king in his place.

Furthermore, Josiah removed the mediums and spiritists, the household gods and idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem. He did this to carry out the words of the law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had found in the house of the LORD.

From Megiddo his servants carried his body in a chariot, brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own tomb. Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz son of Josiah, anointed him, and made him king in place of his father.

And Pharaoh Neco imprisoned Jehoahaz at Riblah in the land of Hamath so that he could not reign in Jerusalem, and he imposed on Judah a levy of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

So Jehoiakim paid the silver and gold to Pharaoh Neco, but to meet Pharaoh’s demand he taxed the land and exacted the silver and the gold from the people, each according to his wealth.

Now the king of Egypt did not march out of his land again, because the king of Babylon had taken all his territory, from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates River.

He carried into exile all Jerusalem—all the commanders and mighty men of valor, all the craftsmen and metalsmiths—ten thousand captives in all. Only the poorest people of the land remained.

Nebuchadnezzar carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, as well as the king’s mother, his wives, his officials, and the leading men of the land. He took them into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

By the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine in the city was so severe that the people of the land had no food.

But the captain of the guard left behind some of the poorest of the land to tend the vineyards and fields.

Of those still in the city, he took a court official who had been appointed over the men of war, as well as five royal advisors. He also took the scribe of the captain of the army, who had enlisted the people of the land, and sixty men who were found in the city.

There at Riblah in the land of Hamath, the king of Babylon struck them down and put them to death. So Judah was taken into exile, away from its own land.

Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, over the people he had left behind in the land of Judah.

And Gedaliah took an oath before them and their men, assuring them, “Do not be afraid of the servants of the Chaldeans. Live in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and it will be well with you.”

Cush was the father of Nimrod, who began to be a mighty one on the earth.

Two sons were born to Eber: One was named Peleg, because in his days the earth was divided, and his brother was named Joktan.

These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before any king reigned over the Israelites: Bela son of Beor. His city was named Dinhabah.

When Jobab died, Husham from the land of the Temanites reigned in his place.

Segub was the father of Jair, who had twenty-three cities in the land of Gilead.

There they found rich, good pasture, and the land was spacious, peaceful, and quiet; for some Hamites had lived there formerly.

They also settled in the east as far as the edge of the desert that extends to the Euphrates River, because their livestock had increased in the land of Gilead.

The descendants of Gad lived next to the Reubenites in the land of Bashan, as far as Salecah:

Now the people of the half-tribe of Manasseh were numerous. They settled in the land from Bashan to Baal-hermon (that is, Senir, also known as Mount Hermon).

But they were unfaithful to the God of their fathers, and they prostituted themselves with the gods of the peoples of the land, whom God had destroyed before them.

They were given Hebron in the land of Judah and its surrounding pasturelands.