Isaiah 38:1-22
38 In those days Hez·e·kiʹah got sick to the point of dying.+ Accordingly Isaiah+ the son of Aʹmoz the prophet came in to him and said to him: “This is what Jehovah has said, ‘Give commands to your household,+ for you yourself will indeed die and will not live.’”+
2 At that Hez·e·kiʹah turned his face to the wall+ and began to pray to Jehovah+
3 and to say: “I beseech you, O Jehovah, remember,+ please, how I have walked+ before you in truthfulness+ and with a complete heart,+ and what was good in your eyes I have done.” And Hez·e·kiʹah began to weep profusely.*+
4 And the word+ of Jehovah now occurred to Isaiah, saying:
5 “Go,* and you must say to Hez·e·kiʹah, ‘This is what Jehovah the God of David your forefather+ has said: “I have heard your prayer.+ I have seen your tears.+ Here I am adding onto your days fifteen years;+
6 and out of the palm of the king of As·syrʹi·a I shall deliver you and this city, and I will defend this city.+
7 And this is the sign for you from Jehovah that Jehovah will perform this word that he has spoken:+
8 Here I am making the shadow of the steps that had gone down on the steps [of the stairs] of Aʹhaz by the sun+ retrace backward ten steps.”’”+ And the sun gradually went back ten steps on the steps [of the stairs] that it had gone down.+
9 A writing of Hez·e·kiʹah the king of Judah, when he got sick+ and revived from his sickness.+
10 I myself said: “In the midst of my days I will go into the gates+ of Sheʹol.I must be deprived of the remainder+ of my years.”
11 I have said: “I shall not see Jah, even Jah,* in the land of the living ones.+I shall no more look on mankind*—with the inhabitants of [the land of] cessation.*
12 My own habitation* has been pulled out+ and removed from me like the tent of shepherds.*I have rolled up my life just like a loom worker;One proceeds to cut me off+ from the very threads of the warp.*From daylight till night you keep handing me over.+
13 I have soothed myself* until the morning.+Like a lion, so he keeps breaking all my bones;+From daylight till night you keep handing me over.+
14 Like the swift, the bulbul, so I keep chirping;+I keep cooing like the dove.+My eyes have looked languishingly to the height:+‘O Jehovah,* I am under oppression. Stand good for me.’+
15 What shall I speak, and [what] will he actually say to me?+He himself has also acted.+I keep walking solemnly all my years in the bitterness of my soul.+
16 ‘O Jehovah,* on that account they keep living; and as with everybody, thereby is the life of my spirit.+And you will restore me to health and certainly preserve me alive.+
17 Look! For peace I had what was bitter, yes, bitter;+And you yourself have become attached to my soul* [and kept it] from the pit of disintegration.+For you have thrown behind your back all my sins.+
18 For it is not Sheʹol that can laud you;+ death itself cannot praise you.+Those going down into the pit cannot look hopefully to your trueness.+
19 The living, the living, he is the one that can laud you,+Just as I can this day.+The father himself can give knowledge+ to his own sons concerning your trueness.
20 O Jehovah, [undertake] to save me,+ and we shall play my string selections+All the days of our life at the house of Jehovah.’”+
21 And Isaiah proceeded to say: “Let them take a cake of pressed dried figs and rub [it] in upon the boil,+ that he may revive.”+
22 Meantime, Hez·e·kiʹah said: “What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of Jehovah?”+
Footnotes
^ Lit., “with a great weeping.”
^ Lit., “Let there be a going.” In Heb. this is a verb in the infinitive absolute, indefinite as to time and impersonal. See Jer 2:2 ftn, “Go.”
^ “Jah, even Jah.” Heb., Yah Yah; Sy, “Jehovah”; T, “the fear-inspiring One, Jehovah”; Lat., Doʹmi·num Doʹmi·num. See Ex 15:2 ftn, “Jah”; Ps 68:4 ftn.
^ Or, “earthling man.” Heb., ʼa·dhamʹ.
^ “Inhabitants of the system of things,” eight Heb. mss.
^ Or, “from the thrum.”
^ By a slight correction; M, “of my shepherd.”
^ Or, “[circular] tent camp”; or, “generation.”
^ “I have cried for help,” by a slight correction of M.
^ One of 134 scribal changes from YHWH to ʼAdho·naiʹ. See App 1B.
^ See vs 14 ftn.
^ “You yourself have held back my soul,” by changing one letter in M to agree with LXXVg.
