Reading I
Isa 38:1-6, 21-22, 7-8
In those days Ezechias was sick even to death, and Isaiah 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.
And Ezechias turned his face toward the wall, and prayed to the Lord,
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.
And the word of the Lord came to Isaiah, saying:
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:
And I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of the Assyrians, and I will protect it.
Now Isaiah 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.
And Ezechias had said: What shall be the sign that I shall go up to the house of the Lord?
And this shall be a sign to thee from the Lord, that the Lord will do this word which he hath spoken:
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.
