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¹ In those days was Hezekiah sick with a mortal disease. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, Thus saith the LORD, Set thy house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live.² Then Hezekiah turned his face towards the wall, and prayed to the LORD,³ And said, Remember now, O LORD, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done [that which is] good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept bitterly.⁴ Then came the word of the LORD to Isaiah, saying,⁵ Go and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add to thy days fifteen years.⁶ And I will deliver thee and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria: and I will defend this city.⁷ And this [shall be] a sign to thee from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing that he hath spoken;⁸ Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which hath gone down on the sun-dial of Ahaz ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it had gone down.

⁹ The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick, and had recovered from his sickness:¹⁰ I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave: I am deprived of the residue of my years.¹¹ I said, I shall not see the LORD, [even] the LORD, in the land of the living: I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world.¹² My age hath departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd's tent: I have cut off like a weaver my life: he will cut me off with pining sickness: from day [even] to night wilt thou make an end of me.¹³ I reckoned till morning, [that], as a lion, so will he break all my bones: from day [even] to night wilt thou make an end of me.¹⁴ Like a crane [or] a swallow, so I chattered: I mourned as a dove: my eyes fail [with looking] upward: O LORD, I am oppressed; undertake for me.¹⁵ What shall I say? he hath both spoken to me, and himself hath done [it]: I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul.¹⁶ O Lord, by these [things men] live, and in all these [things is] the life of my spirit: so wilt thou recover me, and make me to live.¹⁷ Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul [delivered it] from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.¹⁸ For the grave cannot praise thee, death can [not] celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.¹⁹ The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I [do] this day: the father to the children shall make known thy truth.²⁰ The LORD [was ready] to save me: therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the days of our life in the house of the LORD.²¹ For Isaiah had said, Let them take a lump of figs, and lay [it] for a plaster upon the boil, and he will recover.²² Hezekiah also had said, What [is] the sign that I shall go up to the house of the LORD?