Page:JPS-1917-Universal.djvu/545

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ISAIAH
39.3

sun-dial of Ahaz, to return backward ten degrees.' So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down.


9The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness.

10I said: In the noontide of my days I shall go,
Even to the gates of the nether-world;
I am deprived of the residue of my years.
11I 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.
12My habitation is plucked up and carried away from me
As a shepherd's tent;
I have rolled up like a weaver my life;
He will cut me off from the thrum;
From day even to night wilt Thou make an end of me.
13The more I make myself like unto a lion until morning,
The more it breaketh all my bones;
From day even to night wilt Thou make an end of me.
14Like a swallow or a crane, so do I chatter,
I do moan as a dove;
Mine eyes fail with looking upward.
O Lord, I am oppressed, be Thou my surety.
15What shall I say? He hath both spoken unto me,
And Himself hath done it;
I shall go softly all my years for the bitterness of my soul.
16O Lord, by these things men live,
And altogether therein is the life of my spirit;
Wherefore recover Thou me, and make me to live.
17Behold, for my 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.
18For the nether-world cannot praise Thee,
Death cannot celebrate Thee;
They that go down into the pit cannot hope for Thy truth.
19The living, the living, he shall praise Thee,
As I do this day;
The father to the children shall make known Thy truth.
20The Lord is ready to save me;
Therefore we will sing songs to the stringed instruments
All the days of our life in the house of the Lord.


21And Isaiah said: 'Let them take a cake of figs, and lay it for a plaster upon the boil, and he shall recover.' 22And Hezekiah said.' What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the Lord?'

39At that time Merodach-baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent a letter and a present to Hezekiah; for he heard that he had been sick, and was recovered. 2And Hezekiah was glad of them, and showed them his treasure-house, the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious oil, and all the house of his armour, and all that was found in his treasures; there was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah showed them not. 3Then came Isaiah the prophet unto king Hezekiah, and said unto him: 'What

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