CHAPTER 38
1 In those days Hezekiah was sick unto the death; and Isaiah, the prophet, the son of Amoz, entered to him, and said to him, The Lord saith these things, Dispose thy house, for thou shalt die, and thou shalt not live.
2 And Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, and prayed the Lord,
3 and said, Lord, I beseech; have thou mind, I beseech, how I went before thee in truth, and in perfect heart, and I did that that was good before thine eyes. And Hezekiah wept with great weeping.
4 And the word of the Lord was made to Isaiah, and said,
5 Go thou, and say to Hezekiah, The Lord God of David, thy father, saith these things, I have heard thy prayer, and I saw thy tears. Lo! I shall add on thy days fifteen years;
6 and I shall deliver thee and this city from the hand of the king of Assyrians, and I shall defend it.
7 Forsooth this shall be to thee a sign of the Lord, that the Lord shall do this word, which he hath spoken.
8 Lo! I shall make the shadow of lines, by which it went down in the horologe of Ahaz, in the sun, to turn again backward by ten lines. And the sun turned again by ten lines, by [the] degrees by which it had gone down.
9 The scripture of Hezekiah, king of Judah, when he had been sick, and had recovered of his sickness.
10 I said, in the middle of my days, I shall go to the gates of hell. I sought the residue of my years;
11 I said, I shall not see the Lord God in the land of livers; I shall no more behold a man, and a dweller of rest.
12 My generation is taken away, and is folded together from me, as the tabernacle of shepherds is folded together. My life is cut down as of a web; he cutted down me, the while I was woven yet.
13 From the morrowtide till to the eventide I felt like thou shalt end me; I hoped till to the morrowtide; as a lion, so he all-brake my bones. From the morrowtide till to the eventide I felt like thou shalt end me;
14 as the young of a swallow, so I shall cry; I shall bethink as a culver. Mine eyes beholding on high, be made feeble. Lord, I suffer violence, answer thou for me;
15 what shall I say, either what shall he answer to me, when he hath done? I shall bethink to thee all my years, in the bitterness of my soul.
16 Lord, if men liveth so, and the life of my spirit is in such things, thou shalt chastise me, and shalt quicken me.
17 Lo! my bitterness is most bitter in peace; forsooth thou hast delivered my soul, that it perished not; thou hast cast away behind thy back all my sins.
18 For not hell shall acknowledge to thee, neither death shall praise thee; they that go down into the pit, shall not abide thy truth.
19 A living man, a living man, he shall acknowledge to thee, as and I today; the father shall make known thy truth to [the] sons.
20 Lord, make thou me safe, and we shall sing our psalms in all the days of our life in the house of the Lord.
21 And Isaiah commanded, that they should take a gobbet of figs, and make a plaster on the wound; and it should be healed.
22 And Hezekiah said, What sign shall be, that I shall ascend [or go up] into the house of the Lord?