Isaiah 38

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

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

³saying, “Please, O LORD, remember how I have walked before You faithfully and with wholehearted devotion; I have done what is good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

⁴And the word of the LORD came to Isaiah, saying,

⁵“Go and tell Hezekiah that this is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: ‘I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold, I will add fifteen years to your life.

⁶And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city.

⁷This will be a sign to you from the LORD that He will do what He has promised:

⁸I will make the sun’s shadow that falls on the stairway of Ahaz go back ten steps.’” So the sunlight went back the ten steps it had descended.

⁹This is a writing by Hezekiah king of Judah after his illness and recovery:

¹⁰I said, “In the prime of my life I must go through the gates of Sheol and be deprived of the remainder of my years.”

¹¹I said, “I will never again see the LORD, even the LORD, in the land of the living; I will no longer look on mankind with those who dwell in this world.

¹²My dwelling has been picked 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; from day until night You make an end of me.