Listen, Jack, c'mon, man! Here's the deal: back in the day, way back in the day, there was a king in Israel by the name of Ahaz. See here, Jack, he was no good, no malarkey! He did all sorts of terrible things, like offering sacrifices to the gods of Syria and sacrificing his own son in the fire. I'm not joking! That's right, he sacrificed his own son! Literally! My father used to say, "Ahaz, you gotta do better than that, man!" But no, he didn't, folks.

Then Ahaz got a new enemy, the king of Edom, and he asked the king of Assyria for help. What was that? The king of Assyria sent his armies to help Ahaz, but they also took away a bunch of stuff from the Temple in Jerusalem, and then the king of Assyria put a new king on the throne in Israel, who was even worse than Ahaz. Or uh, you know, he was pretty bad.

But then Ahaz died, and Hezekiah took the throne. He was a good king, and he did a bunch of stuff to get Israel back on track. No malarkey! He removed the idols from the Temple and re-instated the Passover feast, among other things. I tell you what, his reign was a major improvement over the previous one.

But then, some bad news. The Assyrians were still around, and they were still a threat. Hezekiah had to pay them a bunch of money just to keep them away. Excuse me, but that's just not gonna happen! Hezekiah was a smart man, so he held them off as best he could, but it was a tough situation.

So that's the story of 2 Kings 16, folks. No malarkey!