2 Kings
20
- In those days Hezekiah became ill and was
at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said,
"This is what the LORD says: Put your house in order, because you are
going to die; you will not recover."
- Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and
prayed to the LORD,
- "Remember, O LORD, how I have walked
before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is
good in your eyes." And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
- Before Isaiah had left the middle court,
the word of the LORD came to him:
- "Go back and tell Hezekiah, the leader
of my people, 'This is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says:
I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you. On the third
day from now you will go up to the temple of the LORD.
- I will add fifteen years to your life. And
I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will
defend this city for my sake and for the sake of my servant David.'"
- Then Isaiah said, "Prepare a poultice
of figs." They did so and applied it to the boil, and he recovered.
- Hezekiah had asked Isaiah, "What will
be the sign that the LORD will heal me and that I will go up to the temple
of the LORD on the third day from now ?"
- Isaiah answered, "This is the LORD'S
sign to you that the LORD will do what he has promised: Shall the shadow go
forward ten steps, or shall it go back ten steps ?"
- "It is a simple matter for the shadow
to go forward ten steps," said Hezekiah. "Rather, have it go back
ten steps."
- Then the prophet Isaiah called upon the
LORD, and the LORD made the shadow go back the ten steps it had gone down
on the stairway of Ahaz.
- At that time Merodach-Baladan son of Baladan
king of Babylon sent Hezekiah letters and a gift, because he had heard of
Hezekiah's illness.
- Hezekiah received the messengers and showed
them all that was in his storehouses -- the silver, the gold, the spices and
the fine oil -- his armory and everything found among his treasures. There
was nothing in his palace or in all his kingdom that Hezekiah did not show
them.
- Then Isaiah the prophet went to King Hezekiah
and asked, "What did those men say, and where did they come from?"
"From a distant land," Hezekiah replied. "They came from Babylon."
- The prophet asked, "What did they see
in your palace?" "They saw everything in my palace," Hezekiah
said. "There is nothing among my treasures that I did not show them."
- Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, "Hear
the word of the LORD:
- The time will surely come when everything
in your palace, and all that your fathers have stored up until this day, will
be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the LORD.
- And some of your descendants, your own flesh
and blood, that will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become
eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon."
- "The word of the LORD you have spoken
is good," Hezekiah replied. For he thought, "Will there not be peace
and security in my lifetime ?"
- As for the other events of Hezekiah's reign,
all his achievements and how he made the pool and the tunnel by which he brought
water into the city, are they not written in the book of the annals of the
kings of Judah ?
- Hezekiah rested with his fathers. And Manasseh
his son succeeded him as king.
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