2 Kings
Chapter Twenty
1 ¶ In those days
Hezekiah was sick and near death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, went
to him and said to him, "Thus says the LORD: 'Set your house in order,
for you shall die, and not live.'"
2 Then he turned his face toward the wall, and prayed to the LORD, saying,
3 "Remember now, O LORD, I pray, how I have walked before You in truth
and with a loyal heart, and have done what was good in Your sight." And
Hezekiah wept bitterly.
4 And it happened, before Isaiah had gone out into the middle court, that the
word of the LORD came to him, saying,
5 "Return and tell Hezekiah the leader of My people, 'Thus says the LORD,
the God of David your father: "I have heard your prayer, I have seen your
tears; surely I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house
of the LORD.
6 "And I will add to your days fifteen years. I will deliver 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, "Take a lump of figs." So they took and laid it
on the boil, and he recovered.
8 And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, "What is the sign that the LORD will heal
me, and that I shall go up to the house of the LORD the third day?"
9 Then Isaiah said, "This is the sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD
will do the thing which He has spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten degrees
or go backward ten degrees?"
10 And Hezekiah answered, "It is an easy thing for the shadow to go down
ten degrees; no, but let the shadow go backward ten degrees."
11 So Isaiah the prophet cried out to the LORD, and He brought the shadow ten
degrees backward, by which it had gone down on the sundial of Ahaz.
12 ¶ At that time Berodach-Baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon,
sent letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he heard that Hezekiah had been
sick.
13 And Hezekiah was attentive to them, and showed them all the house of his
treasures-the silver and gold, the spices and precious ointment, and all his
armory-all that was found among his treasures. There was nothing in his house
or in all his dominion that Hezekiah did not show them.
14 Then Isaiah the prophet went to King Hezekiah, and said to him, "What
did these men say, and from where did they come to you?" So Hezekiah said,
"They came from a far country, from Babylon."
15 And he said, "What have they seen in your house?" So Hezekiah answered,
"They have seen all that is in my house; there is nothing among my treasures
that I have not shown them."
16 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, "Hear the word of the LORD:
17 'Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house, and what your
fathers have accumulated until this day, shall be carried to Babylon; nothing
shall be left,' says the LORD.
18 'And they shall take away some of your sons who will descend from you, whom
you will beget; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.'"
19 So Hezekiah said to Isaiah, "The word of the LORD which you have spoken
is good!" For he said, "Will there not be peace and truth at least
in my days?"
20 Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah-all his might, and how he made a pool
and a tunnel and brought water into the city-are they not written in the book
of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
21 So Hezekiah rested with his fathers. Then Manasseh his son reigned in his
place.
Go to Chapter Twenty-One
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