¹² Nevertheless, for the sake of David^(A) your father, I will not do it during your lifetime. I will tear it out of the hand of your son.

¹⁹ Because your heart was responsive and you humbled^(A) yourself before the Lord when you heard what I have spoken against this place and its people—that they would become a curse^[a](B) and be laid waste^(C)—and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I also have heard you, declares the Lord. ²⁰ Therefore I will gather you to your ancestors, and you will be buried in peace.^(D) Your eyes^(E) will not see all the disaster I am going to bring on this place.’”

So they took her answer back to the king.

¹⁹ “The word of the Lord you have spoken is good,” Hezekiah replied. For he thought, “Will there not be peace and security in my lifetime?”

¹⁷ The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your predecessors have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon.^(A) Nothing will be left, says the Lord.

²⁹ “Have you noticed how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled^(A) himself, I will not bring this disaster in his day,^(B) but I will bring it on his house in the days of his son.”^(C)

⁴ So he passed through the hill^(A) country of Ephraim and through the area around Shalisha,^(B) but they did not find them. They went on into the district of Shaalim, but the donkeys^(C) were not there. Then he passed through the territory of Benjamin, but they did not find them.

⁵ When they reached the district of Zuph,^(D) Saul said to the servant who was with him, “Come, let’s go back, or my father will stop thinking about the donkeys and start worrying^(E) about us.”

²⁹ So when God destroyed the cities of the plain,^(A) he remembered^(B) Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe^(C) that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.^(D)