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Rhyming Isaiah, Chapter 38

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Rhyming Isaiah, Chapter 38

In those days Hezekiah, sick, became

and he was at the point of death, that place.

Isaiah son of Amoz, to him, came,

the prophet, and said to him, “The LORD says:

Your last instructions, to your household, give

for you are dying, you’ll no longer live.

You won’t recover from how you are sick.”

Then to the wall was where he turned his face

and, to the LORD, how Hezekiah prayed:

“Remember now, O LORD, you, I implore,

how faithfully I’ve walked, with you, before,

with a whole heart, how I consistently,

what’s pleasing to you, did.” And bitterly,

how Hezekiah wept specifically.

Then, of the LORD, Isaiah, to him came

the word, “Go, Hezekiah, to, and say,

Thus says the LORD who is the God of your

ancestor David: I have heard your prayer,

I’ve seen your tears; I will add fifteen years

onto your life. I will deliver you,

and from his clutches, I, this city, too,

will save it from the king’s, Assyrian.

I’ll be a shield, this city, to defend.

(“A plaster made of figs,” Isaiah said,

“prepare, and then, onto the boil, apply,

so that he’ll make a full recovery.”

This also, Hezekiah, he had said:

“What is the sign?  How is it that I’ll know,

up to the LORD’s house, where it is I’ll go?”)

“This is a sign to you that’s from the LORD,

that, he, the LORD will do this thing, assured,

that he has promised: See, how I will make

the shadow cast, the setting sun’s, turn back

ten steps upon the stairway of Ahaz.”

So then the sun came backwards those ten steps,

the ones the shadow passed as the sun set.

A poem wrote by Hezekiah, King,

from illness after his recovery:

I said this: In the noontide of my days

I must depart; for how, to Sheol’s gates,

I’ve been consigned, and there, where I’ll remain,

eternally, there, I will make my place.

I said, I shall no longer see the LORD

as I did, of the living, in the land;

I shall no longer see my fellow men

as I did, how, in the world, I lived, when.

My dwelling, what has been removed from me,

pulled up just like a tent where shepherds sleep;

I, like a weaver, have rolled up my life;

and, from the loom, he looks to cut me off;

from day to night you bring me to an end;

until the morning, I, for help, cry, then;

just like a lion, he breaks all my bones;

from day to night you bring me to an end.

I clamor like a swallow or a crane,

it’s like a dove, the way that I will moan.

My eyes have, weary, grown, from looking up.

LORD, I am overwhelmed. Come to my help!

What can I say to him? How can I speak?

He is the one to act and I must eke,

existence, from my years, which ones are left.

Because of my soul and its bitterness,

all of my nightly sleep, from me, has fled.

Yet, LORD, because of you, my soul will live.

My spirit, rest, I ask you, me, to give;

restore me and life, to me, please now give.

In bitterness and not prosperity,

that place where my lot had been cast indeed,

but your love saved me from destruction’s pit.

Behind you, where you have thrust all my sins.

For Sheol cannot thank you, death cannot,

you, praise, for those who go down to the Pit,

hope for your faithfulness, they can’t hold that.

The living, it’s the living, you, they thank,

as I do this day; fathers, how they make

known to their children of your faithfulness.

The LORD will save me and to instruments

with strings, how we will sing, all of the days

of our lives at the LORD’s house as our place.