And Hezekiah himself I shut up in Jerusalem, his capital city, like a bird in a cage, building towers round the city to hem him in, and raising banks of earth against the gates, so as to prevent escape....

Then upon this Hezekiah there fell the fear of the power of my arms and he sent out to me the chiefs and the elders of Jerusalem with thirty talents of gold and eight hundred talents of silver, and divers treasures, a rich and immense booty....

All these things were brought to me at Nineveh, the seat of my government, Hezekiah having sent them by way of tribute, and as a token of his submission to my power." It appears then that Sennacherib, after punishing the people of Ekron, broke up from before that city, and entering Judaea proceeded towards Jerusalem, spreading his army over a wide space, and capturing on his way a vast number of small towns and villages, whose inhabitants he enslaved and carried off to the number of 200,000.

Having reached Jerusalem, he commenced the siege in the usual way, erecting towers around the city, from which stones and arrows were discharged against the defenders of the fortifications, and "casting banks" against the walls and gates.

Jerusalem seems to have been at this time very imperfectly fortified.