Axial Commons
Hebrew / JewishChristianity
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.
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.
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 Isaias, 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.
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.
The writing of Ezechias king of Juda, when he had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness.
I said: In the midst of my days I shall go to the gates of hell: I sought for the residue of my years.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
O Lord, save me, and we will sing our psalms all the days of our life in the house of the Lord.
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.
And Ezechias had said: What shall be the sign that I shall go up to the house of the Lord?
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.
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.
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.
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.
And Isaias said to Ezechias: Hear the word of the Lord of hosts.
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.
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.
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.
Be comforted, be comforted, my people, saith your God.
Speak ye to the heart of Jerusalem, and call to her: for her evil is come to an end, her iniquity is forgiven: she hath received of the hand of the Lord double for all her sins.
The voice of one crying in the desert: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God.
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough ways plain.
And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh together shall see, that the mouth of the Lord hath spoken.
The voice of one, saying: Cry. And I said: What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the field.
The grass is withered, and the flower is fallen, because the spirit of the Lord hath blown upon it. Indeed the people is grass:
The grass is withered, and the flower is fallen: but the word of our Lord endureth for ever.
Get thee up upon a high mountain, thou that bringest good tidings to Sion: lift up thy voice with strength, thou that bringest good tidings to Jerusalem: lift it up, fear not. Say to the cities of Juda: Behold your God:
Behold the Lord God shall come with strength, and his arm shall rule: Behold his reward is with him and his work is before him.
He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather together the lambs with his arm, and shall take them up in his bosom, and he himself shall carry them that are with young.
Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and weighed the heavens with his palm? who hath poised with three fingers the bulk of the earth, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?
Who hath forwarded the spirit of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor, and hath taught him?
With whom hath he consulted, and who hath instructed him, and taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and shewed him the way of understanding?
Behold the Gentiles are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the smallest grain of a balance: behold the islands are as a little dust.
And Libanus shall not be enough to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering.
All nations are before him as if they had no being at all, and are counted to him as nothing, and vanity.
To whom then have you likened God? or what image will you make for him?
Hath the workman cast a graven statue? or hath the goldsmith formed it with gold, or the silversmith with plates of silver?
He hath chosen strong wood, and that will not rot: the skilful workman seeketh how he may set up an idol that may not be moved.
Do you not know? hath it not been heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have you not understood the foundations of the earth?
It is he that sitteth upon the globe of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as locusts: he that stretcheth out the heavens as nothing, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in.
He that bringeth the searchers of secrets to nothing, that hath made the judges of the earth as vanity.
And surely their stock was neither planted, nor sown, nor rooted in the earth: suddenly he hath blown upon them, and they are withered, and a whirlwind shall take them away as stubble.
And to whom have ye likened me, or made me equal, saith the Holy One?
Lift up your eyes on high, and see who hath created these things: who bringeth out their host by number, and calleth them all by their names: by the greatness of his might, and strength, and power, not one of them was missing.
Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel: My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God?
Knowest thou not, or hast thou not heard? the Lord is the everlasting God, who hath created the ends of the earth: he shall not faint, nor labour, neither is there any searching out of his wisdom.
It is he that giveth strength to the weary, and increaseth force and might to them that are not.
You shall faint, and labour, and young men shall fall by infirmity.
But they that hope in the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall take wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
Let the islands keep silence before me, and the nations take new strength: let them come near, and then speak, let us come near to judgment together.
Who hath raised up the just one from the east, hath called him to follow him? he shall give the nations in his sight, and he shall rule over kings: he shall give them as the dust to his sword, as stubble driven by the wind, to his bow.
He shall pursue them, he shall pass in peace, no path shall appear after his feet.
Who hath wrought and done these things, calling the generations from the beginning? I the Lord, I am the first and the last.
The islands saw it, and feared, the ends of the earth were astonished, they drew near, and came.
Every one shall help his neighbour, and shall say to his brother: Be of good courage.
The coppersmith striking with the hammer encouraged him that forged at that time, saying: It is ready for soldering: and he strengthened it with nails, that it should not be moved.
But thou Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend:
In whom I have taken thee from the ends of the earth, and from the remote parts thereof have called thee, and said to thee: Thou art my servant, I have chosen thee, and have not cast thee away.
Fear not, for I am with thee: turn not aside, for I am thy God: I have strengthened thee, and have helped thee, and the right hand of my just one hath upheld thee.
Behold all that fight against thee shall be confounded and ashamed, they shall be as nothing, and the men shall perish that strive against thee.
Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find the men that resist thee: they shall be as nothing: and as a thing consumed the men that war against thee.
For I am the Lord thy God, who take thee by the hand, and say to thee: Fear not, I have helped thee.
Fear not, thou worm of Jacob, you that are dead of Israel: I have helped thee, saith the Lord: and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel.
I have made thee as a new thrashing wain, with teeth like a saw: thou shalt thrash the mountains, and break them in pieces: and shalt make the hills as chaff.
Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, in the Holy One of Israel thou shalt be joyful.
The needy and the poor seek for waters, and there are none: their tongue hath been dry with thirst. I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
I will open rivers in the high hills, and fountains in the midst of the plains: I will turn the desert into pools of waters, and the impassable land into streams of waters.
I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, and the thorn, and the myrtle, and the olive tree: I will set in the desert the fir tree, the elm, and the box tree together:
That they may see and know, and consider, and understand together that the hand of the Lord hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it.
Bring your cause near, saith the Lord: bring hither, if you have any thing to allege, saith the King of Jacob.
Let them come, and tell us all things that are to come: tell us the former things what they were: and we will set our heart upon them and shall know the latter end of them, and tell us the things that are to come.
Shew the things that are to come hereafter, and we shall know that ye are gods. Do ye also good or evil, if you can: and let us speak, and see together.
Behold, you are of nothing, and your work of that which hath no being: he that hath chosen you is an abomination.
I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come from the rising of the sun: he shall call upon my name, and he shall make princes to be as dirt, and as the potter treading clay.
Who hath declared from the beginning, that we may know: and from time of old, that we may say: Thou art just. There is none that sheweth, nor that foretelleth, nor that heareth your words.
The first shall say to Sion: Behold they are here, and to Jerusalem I will give an evangelist.
And I saw, and there was no one even among them to consult, or who, when I asked, could answer a word.
Behold they are all in the wrong, and their works are vain: their idols are wind and vanity.
Behold my servant, I will uphold him: my elect, my soul delighteth in him: I have given my spirit upon him, he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.
He shall not cry, nor have respect to person, neither shall his voice be heard abroad.
The bruised reed he shall not break, and smoking flax he shall not quench, he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.
He shall not be sad, nor troublesome, till he set judgment in the earth, and the islands shall wait for his law.
Thus saith the Lord God that created the heavens, and stretched them out: that established the earth, and the things that spring out of it: that giveth breath to the people upon it, and spirit to them that tread thereon.
I the Lord have called thee in justice, and taken thee by the hand, and preserved thee. And I have given thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles:
That thou mightest open the eyes of the blind, and bring forth the prisoner out of prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.
I the Lord, this is my name: I will not give my glory to another, nor my praise to graven things.
The things that were first, behold they are come: and new things do I declare: before they spring forth, I will make you hear them.