CHAPTER 20
1 In those days Hezekiah was sick unto the death; and Isaiah, the prophet, the son of Amoz, came to him, and said to him, The Lord God saith these things, Command or Dispose to thine house, that is, make thy testament, for thou shalt die, and thou shalt not live.
2 And Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, and worshipped the Lord, and said,
3 I beseech, Lord, have mind, how I have gone before thee in truth, and in a perfect heart, and I did that, that was pleasant before thee. Then Heze-kiah wept with a great weeping.
4 And before that Isaiah went out half the part of the courtyard, the word of the Lord was made to Isaiah, and said,
5 Turn thou again, and say to Hezekiah, the duke of my people, The Lord, God of David, thy father, saith these things, I have heard thy prayer, and I saw thy tears, and lo! I have healed thee. In the third day thou shalt go up into the temple of the Lord,
6 and I shall add fifteen years to thy days; but also I shall deliver thee and this city from the hand of the king of Assyrians, and I shall defend this city for me, and for David, my servant.
7 And Isaiah said, Bring ye to me a gobbet of figs. And when they had brought it, and had put it on the botch of Hezekiah or on his botch, he was healed.
8 And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, What shall be the sign, that the Lord shall heal me, and also that in the third day I shall go up into the temple of the Lord?
9 To whom Isaiah said, This shall be a sign of the Lord, that the Lord shall do the word which he spake; wilt thou, that the shadow of the sun go further by ten lines, either turn again by so many degrees?
10 And Hezekiah said, It is light, or easy, that the shadow increase by ten lines, neither I will or desire that this be done, but that it turn again back-ward by ten degrees.
11 Then Isaiah, the prophet, called inwardly the Lord, and brought again backward by ten degrees the shadow by the same lines, by which it had gone down then in the horologe of Ahaz.
12 In that time, Berodach-baladan, the son of Baladan, the king of Babylon, sent letters and gifts to Hezekiah; for he had heard that Hezekiah had been sick, and had recovered.
13 And Hezekiah was glad in the coming of them, and he showed to them the house of spiceries, and gold, and silver, and diverse pigments, also ointments, and the house of his vessels, and all things that he might have in his treasures [or treasuries]; there was not any word, or thing, in his house, and in all his power, that Hezekiah showed not to them.
14 Soothly Isaiah, the prophet, came to king Hezekiah, and said to him, What said these men, either from whence came they to thee? To whom Hezekiah said, They came to me from a far land, from Babylon.
15 And he answered, What have they seen in thine house? Hezekiah said, They have seen all things, whatever things be in mine house; nothing is in my treasures [or treasuries], which I showed not to them.
16 Therefore Isaiah said to Hezekiah, Hear thou the word of the Lord.
17 Lo! days come, and all things that be in thine house, and which things thy fathers made till into this day, shall be taken away into Babylon; not anything shall dwell, saith the Lord.
18 But also of thy sons, that shall go out of thee, which thou shalt beget, shall be taken [away], and they shall be geldings in the palace of the king of Babylon.
19 And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, The word of the Lord, which he spake, is good; only peace and truth be in my days.
20 Forsooth the residue of [the] words of Hezekiah, and all his strength, and how he made a cistern, and a water conduit, and brought water into the city, whether these be not written in the book of [the] words of [the] days of the kings of Judah?
21 And Hezekiah slept with his fathers, and Manasseh, his son, reigned for him.