Chapter 38

In those days Hezekiah was ill and near death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, came to him, and said to him, The Lord says, Put your house in order; for your death is near.

And Hezekiah, turning his face to the wall, made his prayer to the Lord, saying,

O Lord, keep in mind how I have been true to you with all my heart, and have done what is good in your eyes. And Hezekiah gave way to bitter weeping.

Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah, saying,

Go to Hezekiah, and say, The Lord, the God of David, your father, says, Your prayer has come to my ears, and I have seen your weeping: see, I will give you fifteen more years of life.

And I will keep you and this town safe from the hands of the king of Assyria: and I will keep watch over this town.

And Isaiah said, This is the sign the Lord will give you, that he will do what he has said:

See, I will make the shade which has gone down on the steps of Ahaz with the sun, go back ten steps. So the shade went back the ten steps by which it had gone down.

The writing of Hezekiah, king of Judah, after he had been ill, and had got better from his disease.

I said, In the quiet of my days I am going down into the underworld: the rest of my years are being taken away from me.

I said, I will not see the Lord, even the Lord in the land of the living: I will not see man again or those living in the world.

My resting-place is pulled up and taken away from me like a herdsman's tent: my life is rolled up like a linen-worker's thread; I am cut off from the cloth on the frame: from day even to night you give me up to pain.

I am crying out with pain till the morning; it is as if a lion was crushing all my bones.

I make cries like a bird; I give out sounds of grief like a dove: my eyes are looking up with desire; O Lord, I am crushed, take up my cause.

What am I to say? seeing that it is he who has done it: all my time of sleeping I am turning from side to side without rest.

O Lord, for this cause I am waiting for you, give rest to my spirit: make me well again, and let me come back to life.

See, in place of peace my soul had bitter sorrow. but you have kept back my soul from the underworld; for you have put all my sins out of your memory.

For the underworld is not able to give you praise, death gives you no honour: for those who go down into the underworld there is no hope in your mercy.

The living, the living man, he will give you praise, as I do this day: the father will give the story of your mercy to his children.

O Lord, quickly be my saviour; so we will make my songs to corded instruments all the days of our lives in the house of the Lord.

And Isaiah said, Let them take a cake of figs, and put it on the diseased place, and he will get well.

And Hezekiah said, What is the sign that I will go up to the house of the Lord?