2 Kings 20

20 ¹ In those days Hezekiah became sick and was near death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came to him and said, "This is what our Father says: Put your house in order, for you will die; you will not recover."

² Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to our Father: ³ "Please, Father, remember how I have walked before you faithfully and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your eyes." And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

⁴ Before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, the word of our Father came to him:

⁵ "Go back and tell Hezekiah, the leader of my people: This is what your Father, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. I am going to heal you. On the third day you will go up to my house. ⁶ I will add fifteen years to your life. I will rescue you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David."

⁷ Then Isaiah said, "Bring a cake of figs." They brought it and applied it to the boil, and he recovered.

⁸ Hezekiah had said to Isaiah, "What will be the sign that our Father will heal me and that I will go up to the house of our Father on the third day?"

⁹ Isaiah said, "This is the sign for you from our Father that our Father will do what he has promised: shall the shadow go forward ten steps, or shall it go back ten steps?"

¹⁰ Hezekiah replied, "It is easy for the shadow to lengthen ten steps; no, let it go back ten steps instead."

¹¹ So Isaiah the prophet called out to our Father, and he brought the shadow back the ten steps it had gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.

Hezekiah Welcomes the Envoys of Babylon

¹² At that time Berodach-baladan son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah, for he had heard that Hezekiah had been sick. ¹³ Hezekiah welcomed them and showed them his entire treasure house: the silver, the gold, the spices, the fine oil, his entire armory, and everything found in his storehouses. There was nothing in his palace or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them.

¹⁴ Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and asked, "What did these men say, and where did they come from?" "They came from a distant country," Hezekiah said, "from Babylon."

¹⁵ "What did they see in your palace?" Isaiah asked. "They saw everything in my palace," Hezekiah replied. "There is nothing among my treasures that I did not show them."

¹⁶ Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, "Hear the word of our Father:

¹⁷ The days are surely coming when everything in your palace, all that your ancestors have stored up to this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says our Father. ¹⁸ And some of your own sons, your own offspring whom you will father, will be taken away to become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.

¹⁹ "The word of our Father that you have spoken is good," Hezekiah replied. For he thought, "Will there not be peace and security in my lifetime?"

Hezekiah Rests with His Ancestors

²⁰ The rest of the deeds of Hezekiah, all his might, and how he made the pool and the tunnel and brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?

²¹ Then Hezekiah rested with his ancestors, and Manasseh his son became king in his place.