Hezekiah’s Life Extended^(A)

20 In ^(B)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 (C)“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 ^(D)the leader of My people, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father: ^(E)“I have heard your prayer, I have seen ^(F)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 ^(G)I will defend this city for My own sake, and for the sake of My servant David.” ’ ”

⁷ Then ^(H)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, ^(I)“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, ^(J)“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 ^[a]degrees; no, but let the shadow go backward ten degrees.”

¹¹ So Isaiah the prophet cried out to the Lord, and ^(K)He brought the shadow ten ^[b]degrees backward, by which it had gone down on the sundial of Ahaz.

The Babylonian Envoys^(L)

^12 (M)At that time ^[c]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 ^(N)Hezekiah was attentive to them, and showed them all the house of his treasures—the silver and gold, the spices and precious ointment, and ^[d]all ^[e]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, ^(O)“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, ^(P)shall be carried to Babylon; nothing shall be left,’ says the Lord. ¹⁸ ‘And ^(Q)they shall take away some of your sons who will ^[f]descend from you, whom you will beget; ^(R)and they shall be ^(S)eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.’ ”

¹⁹ So Hezekiah said to Isaiah, ^(T)“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?”

Death of Hezekiah^(U)

^20 (V)Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah—all his might, and how he ^(W)made a ^(X)pool and a ^[g]tunnel and ^(Y)brought water into the city—are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? ²¹ So ^(Z)Hezekiah ^[h]rested with his fathers. Then Manasseh his son reigned in his place.

Syria Besieges Samaria in Famine

²⁴ And it happened after this that ^(A)Ben-Hadad king of Syria gathered all his army, and went up and besieged Samaria. ²⁵ And there was a great ^(B)famine in Samaria; and indeed they besieged it until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and one-fourth of a ^[a]kab of dove droppings for five shekels of silver.

²⁶ Then, as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!”

²⁷ And he said, “If the Lord does not help you, where can I find help for you? From the threshing floor or from the winepress?” ²⁸ Then the king said to her, “What is troubling you?”

And she answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ ²⁹ So ^(C)we boiled my son, and ate him. And I said to her on the next day, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him’; but she has hidden her son.”

³⁰ Now it happened, when the king heard the words of the woman, that he ^(D)tore his clothes; and as he passed by on the wall, the people looked, and there underneath he had sackcloth on his body. ³¹ Then he said, ^(E)“God do so to me and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on him today!”

³² But Elisha was sitting in his house, and ^(F)the elders were sitting with him. And the king sent a man ahead of him, but before the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, ^(G)“Do you see how this son of ^(H)a murderer has sent someone to take away my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door, and hold him fast at the door. Is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him?” ³³ And while he was still talking with them, there was the messenger, coming down to him; and then the king said, “Surely this calamity is from the Lord; ^(I)why should I wait for the Lord any longer?”