Hezekiah’s Life Extended
20 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.
The Babylonian Envoys
12 At that time Berodach-Baladan[a] 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[b] 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?”
Death of Hezekiah
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.
Manasseh Reigns in Judah
21 Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he
reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephzibah. 2 And
he did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the abominations of the
nations whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel. 3 For he
rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; he raised up
altars for Baal, and made a wooden image,[c] as Ahab king of Israel had done;
and he worshiped all the host of heaven[d] and served them. 4 He also built
altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, “In Jerusalem I
will put My name.” 5 And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two
courts of the house of the Lord. 6 Also he made his son pass through the fire,
practiced soothsaying, used witchcraft, and consulted spiritists and mediums.
He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger. 7 He even
set a carved image of Asherah[e] that he had made, in the house of which the
Lord had said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house and in Jerusalem,
which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put My name
forever; 8 and I will not make the feet of Israel wander anymore from the land
which I gave their fathers—only if they are careful to do according to all that
I have commanded them, and according to all the law that My servant Moses
commanded them.” 9 But they paid no attention, and Manasseh seduced them to do
more evil than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of
Israel.
10 And the Lord spoke by His servants the prophets, saying,
11 “Because Manasseh king of Judah has done these abominations (he has acted
more wickedly than all the Amorites who were before him, and has also made
Judah sin with his idols), 12 therefore thus says the Lord God of Israel:
‘Behold, I am bringing such calamity upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whoever
hears of it, both his ears will tingle. 13 And I will stretch over Jerusalem
the measuring line of Samaria and the plummet of the house of Ahab; I will wipe
Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. 14 So I
will forsake the remnant of My inheritance and deliver them into the hand of
their enemies; and they shall become victims of plunder to all their enemies,
15 because they have done evil in My sight, and have provoked Me to anger since
the day their fathers came out of Egypt, even to this day.’”
16 Moreover Manasseh shed very much innocent blood, till he
had filled Jerusalem from one end to another, besides his sin by which he made
Judah sin, in doing evil in the sight of the Lord.
17 Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh—all that he did, and
the sin that he committed—are they not written in the book of the chronicles of
the kings of Judah? 18 So Manasseh rested with his fathers, and was buried in
the garden of his own house, in the garden of Uzza. Then his son Amon reigned
in his place.
Amon’s Reign and Death
19 Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he
reigned two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Meshullemeth the daughter
of Haruz of Jotbah. 20 And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, as his father
Manasseh had done. 21 So he walked in all the ways that his father had walked;
and he served the idols that his father had served, and worshiped them. 22 He
forsook the Lord God of his fathers, and did not walk in the way of the Lord.
23 Then the servants of Amon conspired against him, and
killed the king in his own house. 24 But the people of the land executed all
those who had conspired against King Amon. Then the people of the land made his
son Josiah king in his place.
25 Now the rest of the acts of Amon which he did, are they
not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? 26 And he was
buried in his tomb in the garden of Uzza. Then Josiah his son reigned in his
place.
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