Isaiah 38

Revised Geneva Translation

38 About that time Hezekiah was sick and near death. And the Prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz, came to him and said to him, “Thus says the LORD: ‘Put your house in order. For you shall die and not live.’”

² Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD,

³ and said, “I beg you, LORD, remember now how I have walked before You in truth, and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

⁴ Then came the Word of the LORD to Isaiah, saying,

⁵ “Go and say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the LORD God of David, your father: “I have heard your prayer, and seen your tears. Behold, I will add fifteen years to your days.

⁶ “And I will deliver you out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and this city. For I will defend this city.

⁷ “And you shall have this sign from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing that He has spoken:

⁸ “Behold, I will bring back the shadow of the sundial (by which it has gone down on the sundial of Ahaz, with the Sun) ten degrees backward.”’” So, the Sun reversed by ten degrees on the sundial of which it had gone down.

⁹ The writing of Hezekiah, King of Judah, when he had been sick and was recovered from his sickness:

¹⁰ “I said at the cessation 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, the LORD in the land of the living. I shall not see man anymore among the inhabitants of the world.

¹² ‘My habitation has departed, and is removed from me, like a shepherd’s tent. I have rolled up my life, like a weaver. He will cut me off from the loom. From day to night You will make an end of me.

¹³ ‘I reckoned until the morning, but He broke all my bones like a lion. From day to night will You make an end of me.

¹⁴ ‘Like a crane, a swallow, so I chattered. I mourned as a dove. My eyes were lifted up on high. O LORD, it has oppressed me. Comfort me.

¹⁵ ‘What shall I say? For He has said it to me, and He has done it. I shall walk weakly in the bitterness of my soul all my years.

¹⁶ ‘O LORD, by these things You sustain life. And in these things is the life of my spirit, by which You cause me to dream and give me life.

¹⁷ ‘Behold, for peace I had bitter grief. But it was Your pleasure to deliver my soul from the pit of corruption. For You have cast all my sins behind Your back.

¹⁸ ‘For the grave cannot confess You. Death cannot praise You. Those who go down into the pit cannot hope for Your truth.

¹⁹ ‘But the living, the living, he shall confess You, as I do this day. The father shall declare Your truth to the children.

²⁰ ‘The LORD saves me. Therefore, we will sing my song all the days of our life in the House of the LORD.’”

²¹ Then Isaiah said, “Take a lump of dry figs and lay it upon the boil. And he shall recover.”

²² Also, Hezekiah had said, “What is the sign that I shall go up into the House of the LORD?”