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

For Sheol cannot thank You;
Death cannot praise You.
Those who go down to the Pit
cannot hope for Your faithfulness.

Indeed, it was for my own welfare
that I had such great bitterness;
but Your love has delivered me
from the Pit of destruction,
for You have thrown all my sins behind Your back.

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.

I am going to make the sun’s shadow that goes down on Ahaz’s stairway go back by 10 steps.” So the sun’s shadow went back the 10 steps it had descended.

The living, only the living can thank You,
as I do today;
a father will make Your faithfulness known to children.

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

“Go and tell Hezekiah that 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 15 years to your life.

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.

Now Isaiah had said, “Let them take a lump of pressed figs and apply it to his infected skin, so that he may recover.”

The Lord will save me;
we will play stringed instruments
all the days of our lives
at the house of the Lord.

This is the sign to you from the Lord that He will do what He has promised:

He said, “Please, Lord, remember how I have walked before You faithfully and wholeheartedly, and have done what pleases You.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

And I will deliver you and this city from the power of the king of Assyria; I will defend this city.

Lord, because of these promises people live,
and in all of them is the life of my spirit as well;
You have restored me to health
and let me live.

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.
You make an end of me from day until night.

Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord.

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.

I thought until the morning:
He will break all my bones like a lion;
You make an end of me day and night.

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,

And Hezekiah had asked, “What is the sign that I will go up to the Lord’s temple?”

Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah: