1 In those days Hezekiah became terminally ill.  * The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came and said to him, "This is what the Lord says: ‘Set your house in order,  * for you are about to die; you will not recover.’ "  *

2 Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord. 3 He said, "Please, Lord, remember how I have walked before you faithfully and wholeheartedly,  * and have done what pleases you."  * And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

4 Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah: 5 "Go and tell Hezekiah, ‘This is what the Lord God of your ancestor David says: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Look, I am going to add fifteen years to your life.  *,*6 And I will rescue you and this city from the grasp of the king of Assyria; I will defend this city.  *7 This is the sign to you  * from the Lord that he will do what he has promised: 8 I am going to make the sun’s shadow that goes down on the stairway of Ahaz go back by ten steps.’ "  * So the sun’s shadow  * went back the ten steps it had descended.

9 A poem by King Hezekiah of Judah after he had been sick and had recovered from his illness:

10 I said: In the prime  * of my life  *

I must go to the gates of Sheol;  *

I am deprived of the rest of my years.

11 I said: I will never see the  Lord,

the Lord in the land of the living;  *

I will not look on humanity any longer

with the inhabitants of what is passing away.  *

12 My dwelling is plucked up and removed from me

like a shepherd’s tent.  *

I have rolled up my life like a weaver;  *

he cuts me off from the loom.  *

By nightfall  * you make an end of me.  *

13 I thought until the morning:

He will break all my bones like a lion.

By nightfall you make an end of me.

14 I chirp like a swallow or a crane;

I moan like a dove.  *

My eyes grow weak looking upward.

Lord, I am oppressed; support me.  *

15 What can I say?

He has spoken to me,

and he himself has done it.

I walk along slowly all my years  *

because of the bitterness of my soul.  *

16 Lord, by such things people live,  *

and in every one of them my spirit finds life;

you have restored me to health  *

and let me live.  *

17 Indeed, it was for my own well-being

that I had such intense bitterness;  *

but your love has delivered me

from the Pit of destruction,  *

for you have thrown all my sins behind your back.  *

18 For Sheol cannot thank you;

Death cannot praise you.  *

Those who go down to the Pit

cannot hope for your faithfulness.

19 The living, only the living can thank you,

as I do today;

a father will make your faithfulness known to children.  *

20 The Lord is ready to save me;

we will play stringed instruments

all the days of our lives

at the house of the  Lord.  *

21 Now Isaiah  * had said, "Let them take a lump of pressed figs and apply it to his infected skin, so that he may recover." 22 And Hezekiah had asked, "What is the sign that I will go up to the Lord’s temple? "