⁸ 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?”

⁹ Isaiah answered, “This is the Lord’s sign^(A) 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?”

¹⁰ “It is a simple^(B) matter for the shadow to go forward ten steps,” said Hezekiah. “Rather, have it go back ten steps.”

¹¹ Then the prophet Isaiah called on the Lord, and the Lord made the shadow go back^(C) the ten steps it had gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.

Envoys From Babylon^(D)(E)

¹² At that time Marduk-Baladan son of Baladan king of Babylon sent Hezekiah letters and a gift, because he had heard of Hezekiah’s illness. ¹³ Hezekiah received the envoys and showed them all that was in his storehouses—the silver, the gold, the spices and the fine olive 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.

¹⁴ 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.”

¹⁵ 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.”

¹⁶ Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord: ¹⁷ The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your predecessors have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon.^(F) Nothing will be left, says the Lord. ¹⁸ And some of your descendants,^(G) your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”^(H)

¹⁹ “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?”