7. Then Isaiah said, "Prepare a bandage made of figs." They did so and put it on the swelling, at which point Hezekiah started getting better.
8. Hezekiah said to Isaiah, "What is the sign that the Lord will heal me and that I’ll be able to go up to the Lord’s temple in three days?"
9. Isaiah said, "This will be your sign from the Lord that he will make his promise come true: Should the shadow go forward ten steps or back ten steps?"
10. "It’s easy for the shadow to go forward ten steps," Hezekiah said, "but not for the shadow to go back ten steps."
11. So the prophet Isaiah called on the Lord, who made the shadow go back ten steps, down the flight of stairs built by Ahaz.
12. At that time Merodach-baladan, son of Babylon’s King Baladan, sent messengers to Hezekiah with letters and a gift. This was because he had heard that Hezekiah was sick.
13. Hezekiah granted them an audience and showed them everything in his treasury—the silver, the gold, the spices, and the fine oil. He also showed them his stock of weaponry and everything in his storehouses. There wasn’t a single thing in his palace or his whole kingdom that Hezekiah didn’t show them.
14. Then the prophet Isaiah came to King Hezekiah and said to him, "What did these men say? Where have they come from?"Hezekiah said, "They came from a distant country: Babylon."