2. Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord,
3. ‘Remember, Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.’ And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
4. Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah:
5. ‘Go and tell Hezekiah, “This is what the Lord, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life.
6. And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city.
7. ‘ “This is the Lord’s sign to you that the Lord will do what he has promised:
8. I will make the shadow cast by the sun go back the ten steps it has gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.” ’ So the sunlight went back the ten steps it had gone down.
9. A writing of Hezekiah king of Judah after his illness and recovery:
10. I said, ‘In the prime of my lifemust I go through the gates of deathand be robbed of the rest of my years?’
11. I said, ‘I will not again see the Lord himselfin the land of the living;no longer will I look on my fellow man,or be with those who now dwell in this world.
12. Like a shepherd’s tent my househas been pulled down and taken from me.Like a weaver I have rolled up my life,and he has cut me off from the loom;day and night you made an end of me.