Hey, this is Shelby and Paul. We're in the book of Second Kings. We're beginning to wrap up this book, a couple more days left in it. We're going to talk through chapters 19 through 21. We kind of ended on a high note in our last episode because Hezekiah came in. He's doing a lot of things that we've been waiting a long time for someone to do. What's happening in these chapters, 19 through 21, Paul? Yeah. So to summarize, like you said, we get more of Hezekiah doing the good thing, right things. So yes, that's good. We do have a little moment at the end. That's maybe not so great, but we'll get there.

So right now, Judah is in a pretty difficult situation.

And Judah's all that's left, right?

The northern kingdom got destroyed.

So Hezekiah has the king of Assyria on his front doorstep.

And the question is, what does he do?

And he does what finally the king is supposed to do. He leans on God.

He goes to a chosen prophet of the Lord, Isaiah, and he asks for aid. And I want us to look here at the words of the Assyrian messenger that comes to Hezekiah. He says, don't let your God on whom you

rely deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be

handed over to the king of Assyria. Look, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all

the countries. And he's basically trying to convince Hezekiah that you have no hope, right? The

king of Assyria is just kind of come and destroy you. And I don't know about you, but that kind of

sounds familiar to something that I've heard before. It sounds like the serpent in the garden.

The serpent says, did God really say, right? Did God really say that you weren't supposed to

eat from it, right? And so he's saying, you know, do you really think God is going to deliver you? Do you really believe that?

But Hezekiah holds fast, even in the face of that challenge.

Okay, that's what I was going to ask. Obviously, we know how Adam and Eve responded to the serpent, but Hezekiah has a different response.

Yeah, and it's how a king should respond in its prayer. And there's so much I think we can learn from Hezekiah's prayer here. He goes in the temple, he lays out the words of the spokesman, and he simply says to God, you know, I don't know what to do. I need help, right? And there's four kind of components to his prayer that I want to point out.

So the first one is he begins by running himself of God's character. And critically, he declares

that the Lord, God alone is God. No other idols, no other gods, but only Yahweh. And then he asks God to open his ears and to hear the mocking of his

enemies, right? So he says, this is who you are, God. Now hear my prayer. And he doesn't downplay

Assyria and the struggle that's facing them. And instead, he acknowledges this. He says in 1917, Lord, it is true that the kings of Syria

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