Chapter 38

  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.  

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

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  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.  

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  Then came the word of the LORD to Isaiah, saying,  

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  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.  

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  And I will deliver thee and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria: and I will defend this city.  

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  And this shall be a sign to thee from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing that he hath spoken;  

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  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.  

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

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  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.  

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  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.  

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  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.  

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  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.  

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  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.  

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  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.  

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  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.  

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  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.  

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  For the grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.  

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  The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day: the father to the children shall make known thy truth.  

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  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.  

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  For Isaiah had said, Let them take a lump of figs, and lay it for a plaster upon the boil, and he will recover.  

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  Hezekiah also had said, What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the LORD?  

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