¹In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill, and Isaiah the son of Amoz, the prophet, came to him and said to him, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Give your last orders to your household, for you are going to die, and you will not live.’ ” ²Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, ³and he said, “I implore you, O Lord, do remember how I have walked before you in truth, and with a sincere heart, and how I have done what is right in your sight.” And Hezekiah wept with great weeping. ⁴And the word of the Lord came to Isaiah as follows: ⁵“Go and say to Hezekiah, ‘This is what the Lord God of David your father says: «I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. I am about to add fifteen years to your days. ⁶I will deliver you and this city from the grip of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city. ⁷And this is your sign from the Lord, for the Lord will perform this pronouncement which he spoke: ⁸I am about to make the shadow of the sundial go back, the shadow which was cast by Ahaz's sundial in the sun – ten degrees backwards.» ’ ” And the sun went back ten degrees on the sundial by which it was cast. ⁹The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah when he was ill and recovered from his sickness: ¹⁰“I said,

‘In the quiet period of my life,

I was to go to the gates of the grave;

I was to be left without the rest of my years.’

¹¹I said, ‘I shall not see the Lord,

The Lord in the land of the living.

I shall no longer see a man

Among the inhabitants of the transitory world.

¹²My span of life has been torn away,

And it has been carried away from me

Like a shepherd's tent.

I have severed off my life;

Like a weaver cutting yarn,

He will cut me off.

From day to night

You were to bring me to an end.

¹³I waited expectantly until the morning.

As a lion tears apart,

So he would break all my bones,

And from day to night I waited

For you to make an end of me.

¹⁴Like a swallow or a crane,

So I chirped;

I cooed like a dove.

My eyes are weak with looking upward.

O Lord^*, I am oppressed;

Become my security.

¹⁵What shall I say,

In that he has spoken to me,

And he has acted?

I will proceed softly for all my years

On account of inward grief.

¹⁶O Lord^*, by these things men live,

And in all of them is my spiritual life,

And you are restoring me to health

And reviving me.

¹⁷But it was for peace

That I had great bitterness,

But you were pleased to deliver my being

From the pit of destruction,

For you have cast all my sins behind your back.

¹⁸For the grave does not praise you,

Nor does death laud you.

Those who go down to the pit

Do not await your truth.

¹⁹It is the living, the living who praise you,

As I do today.

A father will make your truth known

To his sons.

²⁰The Lord was there to save me,

And we will play my music on string instruments,

All the days of our life,

At the house of the Lord.’ ”

²¹And Isaiah said, “Let them take a cake of pressed figs and rub it on the inflammation, and he will recover.” ²²Then Hezekiah said, “What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the Lord?”