1. In those days Hezekiah became terminally ill. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came and said to him, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Put your affairs in order, for you are about to die; you will not recover.’ ”
2. Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord.
3. He said, “Please, Lord, remember how I have walked before You faithfully and wholeheartedly, and have done what pleases You.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
4. Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah:
5. “Go and tell Hezekiah that this is what the Lord God of your ancestor David says: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Look, I am going to add 15 years to your life.
6. And I will deliver you and this city from the power of the king of Assyria; I will defend this city.
7. This is the sign to you from the Lord that He will do what He has promised:
8. I am going to make the sun’s shadow that goes down on Ahaz’s stairway go back by 10 steps.” So the sun’s shadow went back the 10 steps it had descended.
9. A poem by Hezekiah king of Judah after he had been sick and had recovered from his illness:
10. I said: In the prime of my life I must go to the gates of Sheol; I am deprived of the rest of my years.
11. I said: I will never see the Lord,the Lord in the land of the living; I will not look on humanity any longerwith the inhabitants of what is passing away.
12. My dwelling is plucked up and removed from melike a shepherd’s tent. I have rolled up my life like a weaver; He cuts me off from the loom. You make an end of me from day until night.