9. Isaiah said, “This is the sign to you from the Lord that He will do what He has promised: Should the shadow go ahead 10 steps or go back 10 steps? ”
10. Then Hezekiah answered, “It’s easy for the shadow to lengthen 10 steps. No, let the shadow go back 10 steps.”
11. So Isaiah the prophet called out to the Lord, and He brought the shadow back the 10 steps it had descended on Ahaz’s stairway.
12. At that time Merodach-baladan son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah since he heard that he had been sick.
13. Hezekiah gave them a hearing and showed them his whole treasure house — the silver, the gold, the spices, and the precious oil — and his armory, and everything that was found in his treasuries. There was nothing in his palace and in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them.
14. Then the prophet Isaiah came to King Hezekiah and asked him, “Where did these men come from and what did they say to you? ”Hezekiah replied, “They came from a distant country, from Babylon.”
15. Isaiah asked, “What have they seen in your palace? ”Hezekiah answered, “They have seen everything in my palace. There isn’t anything in my treasuries that I didn’t show them.”
16. Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord:
17. ‘The time will certainly come when everything in your palace and all that your fathers have stored up until this day will be carried off to Babylon; nothing will be left,’ says the Lord.
18. ‘Some of your descendants who come from you will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.’ ”
19. Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good,” for he thought: Why not, if there will be peace and security during my lifetime?
20. The rest of the events of Hezekiah’s reign, along with all his might and how he made the pool and the tunnel and brought water into the city, are written in the Historical Record of Judah’s Kings.