Isaiah 38:9-22

9A poem by King Hezekiah of Judah after he had been sick and had recovered from his illness:

10I said: In the prime of my life I must go to the gates of Sheol; I am deprived of the rest of my years.

11I 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.

12My 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. By nightfall you make an end of me.

13I thought until the morning: He will break all my bones like a lion. By nightfall you make an end of me.

14I chirp like a swallow or a crane; I moan like a dove. My eyes grow weak looking upward. Lord, I am oppressed; support me.

15What 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.

16Lord, by such things people live, and in every one of them my spirit finds life; you have restored me to health and let me live.

17Indeed, it was for my own well-being that I had such intense bitterness; but your love has delivered me from the Pit of destruction, for you have thrown all my sins behind your back.

18For Sheol cannot thank you; Death cannot praise you. Those who go down to the Pit cannot hope for your faithfulness.

19The living, only the living can thank you, as I do today; a father will make your faithfulness known to children.

20The Lord is ready to save me; we will play stringed instruments all the days of our lives at the house of the Lord.

21Now Isaiah had said, “Let them take a lump of pressed figs and apply it to his infected skin, so that he may recover.”

22And Hezekiah had asked, “What is the sign that I will go up to the Lord’s temple?”