Isaiah 37; Isaiah 38; Isaiah 39; Psalms 76

1 And it came to pass, when king Ezechias had heard it, that he rent his garments and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord.

2 And he sent Eliacim who was over the house, and Sobna the scribe, and the ancients of the priests covered with sackcloth, to Isaias the son of Amos the prophet.

3 And they said to him: Thus saith Ezechias: This day is a day of tribulation, and of rebuke, and of blasphemy: for the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth.

4 It may be the Lord thy God will hear the words of Rabsaces, whom the king of the Assyrians his master hath sent to blaspheme the living God, and to reproach with words which the Lord thy God hath heard: wherefore lift up by prayer for the remnant that is left.

5 And the servants of Ezechias came to Isaias.

6 And Isaias said to them: Thus shall you say to your master: Thus saith the Lord: Be not afraid of the words that thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of the Assyrians have blasphemed me.

7 Behold, I will send a spirit upon him, and he shall hear a message, and shall return to his own country, and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own country.

8 And Rabsaces returned, and found the king of the Assyrians besieging Lobna. For he had heard that he was departed from Lachis.

9 And he heard say about Tharaca the king of Ethiopia: He is come forth to fight against thee. And when he heard it, he sent messengers to Ezechias, saying:

10 Thus shall you speak to Ezechias the king of Juda, saying: Let not thy God deceive thee, in whom thou trustest, saying: Jerusalem shall not be given into the hands of the king of the Assyrians.

11 Behold thou hast heard all that the kings of the Assyrians have done to all countries which they have destroyed, and canst thou be delivered?

12 Have the gods of the nations delivered them whom my fathers have destroyed, Gozam, and Haram, and Reseph, and the children of Eden, that were in Thalassar?

13 Where is the king of Emath, and the king of Arphad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Ana, and of Ava?

14 And Ezechias took the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it, and went up to the house of the Lord, and Ezechias spread it before the Lord.

15 And Ezechias prayed to the Lord, saying:

16 Lord of hosts, God of Israel who sitteth upon the cherubims, thou alone art the God of all the kingdoms of the earth, thou hast made heaven and earth.

17 Incline, O Lord, thy ear, and hear: open, O Lord, thy eyes, and see, and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he hath sent to blaspheme the living God.

18 For of a truth, O Lord, the kings of the Assyrians have laid waste lands, and their countries.

19 And they have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the works of men’s hands, of wood and stone: and they broke them in pieces.

20 And now, O Lord our God, save us out of his hand: and let all the kingdoms of the earth know, that thou only art the Lord.

21 And Isaias the son of Amos sent to Ezechias, saying: Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: For the prayer thou hast made to me concerning Sennacherib the king of the Assyrians:

22 This is the word which the Lord hath spoken of him: The virgin the daughter of Sion hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn: the daughter of Jerusalem hath wagged the head after thee.

23 Whom hast thou reproached, and whom hast thou blasphemed, and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thy eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel.

24 By the hand of thy servants thou hast reproached the Lord: and hast said: With the multitude of my chariots I have gone up to the height of the mountains, to the top of Libanus: and I will cut down its tall cedars, and its choice fir trees, and will enter to the top of its height, to the forest of its Carmel.

25 I have digged, and drunk water, and have dried up with the sole of my foot, all the rivers shut up in banks.

26 Hast thou not heard what I have done to him of old? from the days of old I have formed it: and now I have brought it to effect: and it hath come to pass that hills fighting together, and fenced cities should be destroyed.

27 The inhabitants of them were weak of hand, they trembled, and were confounded: they became like the grass of the field, and the herb of the pasture, and like the grass of the housetops, which withered before it was ripe.

28 I know thy dwelling, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy rage against me.

29 When thou wast mad against me, thy pride came up to my ears: therefore I will put a ring in thy nose, and a bit between thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest.

30 But to thee this shall be a sign: Eat this year the things that spring of themselves, and in the second year eat fruits: but in the third year sow and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them.

31 And that which shall be saved of the house of Juda, and which is left, shall take root downward, and shall bear fruit upward:

32 For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and salvation from mount Sion: the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this.

33 Wherefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of the Assyrians: He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow into it, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a trench about it.

34 By the way that he came, he shall return, and into this city he shall not come, saith the Lord.

35 And I will protect this city, and will save it for my own sake, and for the sake of David my servant.

36 And the angel of the Lord went out and slew in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand. And they arose in the morning, and behold they were all dead corpses.

37 And Sennacherib the king of the Assyrians went out and departed, and returned, and dwelt in Ninive.

38 And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the temple of Nesroch his god, that Adramelech and Sarasar his sons slew him with the sword: and they fled into the land of Ararat, and Asarhaddon his son reigned in his stead.

1 In those days Ezechias was sick even to death, and Isaias the son of Amos the prophet cane unto him, and said to him: Thus saith the Lord: Take order with thy house, for thou shalt die, and not live.

2 And Ezechias turned his face toward the wall, and prayed to the Lord,

3 And said: I beseech thee, O Lord, remember how I have walked before thee in truth, and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Ezechias wept with great weeping.

4 And the word of the Lord came to Isaias, saying:

5 Go and say to Ezechias: Thus saith the Lord the God of David thy father: I have heard thy prayer, and I have seen thy tears: behold I will add to thy days fifteen years:

6 And I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of the Assyrians, and I will protect it.

7 And this shall be a sign to thee from the Lord, that the Lord will do this word which he hath spoken:

8 Behold I will bring again the shadow of the lines, by which it is now gone down in the sun dial of Achaz with the sun, ten lines backward. And the sun returned ten lines by the degrees by which it was gone down.

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

10 I said: In the midst of my days I shall go to the gates of hell: I sought for the residue of my years.

11 I said: I shall not see the Lord God in the land of the living. I shall behold man no more, nor the inhabitant of rest.

12 My generation is at an end, and it is rolled away from me, as a shepherd’s tent. My life is cut off, as by a weaver: whilst I was yet but beginning, he cut me off: from morning even to night thou wilt make an end of me.

13 I hoped till morning, as a lion so hath he broken all my bones: from morning even to night thou wilt make an end of me.

14 I will cry like a young swallow, I will meditate like a dove: my eyes are weakened looking upward: Lord, I suffer violence, answer thou for me.

15 What shall I say, or what shall he answer for me, whereas he himself hath done it? I will recount to thee all my years in the bitterness of my soul.

16 O Lord, if man’s life be such, and the life of my spirit be in such things as these, thou shalt correct me, and make me to live.

17 Behold in peace is my bitterness most bitter: but thou hast delivered my soul that it should not perish, thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.

18 For hell shall not confess to thee, neither shall death praise thee: nor shall they that go down into the pit, look for thy truth.

19 The living, the living, he shall give praise to thee, as I do this day: the father shall make the truth known to the children.

20 O Lord, save me, and we will sing our psalms all the days of our life in the house of the Lord.

21 Now Isaias had ordered that they should take a lump of figs, and lay it as a plaster upon the wound, and that he should be healed.

22 And Ezechias had said: What shall be the sign that I shall go up to the house of the Lord?

1 At that time Merodach Baladan, the son of Baladan king of Babylon, sent letters and presents to Ezechias: for he had heard that he had been sick and was recovered.

2 And Ezechias rejoiced at their coming, and he shewed them the storehouses of his aromatical spices, and of the silver, and of the gold, and of the sweet odours, and of the precious ointment, and all the storehouses of his furniture, and all things that were found in his treasures. There was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion that Ezechias shewed them not.

3 Then Isaias the prophet came to king Ezechias, and said to him: What said these men, and from whence came they to thee? And Ezechias said: From a far country they came to me, from Babylon.

4 And he said: What saw they in thy house? And Ezechias said: All things that are in my house have they seen, there was not any thing which I have not shewn them in my treasures.

5 And Isaias said to Ezechias: Hear the word of the Lord of hosts.

6 Behold the days shall come that all that is in thy house, and that thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried away into Babylon: there shall not any thing be left, saith the Lord.

7 And of thy children, that shall issue from thee, whom thou shalt beget, they shall take away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.

8 And Ezechias said to Isaias: The word of the Lord, which he hath spoken, is good. And he said: Only let peace and truth be in my days.

1 (75-1) <Unto the end, in praises, a psalm for Asaph: a canticle to the Assyrians.> (75-2) In Judea God is known: his name is great in Israel.

2 (75-3) And his place is in peace: and his abode in Sion:

3 (75-4) There hath he broken the powers of bows, the shield, the sword, and the battle.

4 (75-5) Thou enlightenest wonderfully from the everlasting hills.

5 (75-6) All the foolish of heart were troubled. They have slept their sleep; and all the men of riches have found nothing in their hands.

6 (75-7) At thy rebuke, O God of Jacob, they have all slumbered that mounted on horseback.

7 (75-8) Thou art terrible, and who shall resist thee? from that time thy wrath.

8 (75-9) Thou hast caused judgment to be heard from heaven: the earth trembled and was still,

9 (75-10) When God arose in judgment, to save all the meek of the earth.

10 (75-11) For the thought of man shall give praise to thee: and the remainders of the thought shall keep holiday to thee.

11 (75-12) Vow ye, and pay to the Lord your God: all you that are round about him bring presents. To him that is terrible,

12 (75-13) Even to him who taketh away the spirit of princes: to the terrible with the kings of the earth.