God

This is the word that 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 her head behind thy back.

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 have cut down its tall cedars, and its choice fir trees. And I have entered into the furthest parts thereof, and the forest of its Carmel.

Hast thou not heard what I have done from the beginning? from the days of old I have formed it, and now I have brought it to effect: that fenced cities of fighting men should be turned to heaps of ruins:

Thy dwelling, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy way I knew before, and thy rage against me.

Thou hast been mad against me, and thy pride hath come 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.

For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and that which shall be saved out of mount Sion: the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this.

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.

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

And I will protect this city, and will save it for my own sake, and for David, my servant's sake.

And it came to pass that night, that an angel of the Lord came, and slew in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand. And when he arose early in the morning, he saw all the bodies of the dead.

In those days Ezechias was sick unto death: and Isaias, the son of Amos, the prophet, came and said to him: Thus saith the Lord God: Give charge concerning thy house, for thou shalt die, and not llve.

And he turned his face to the wall, and prayed to the Lord, saying:

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 pleasing before thee. And Ezechias wept with much weeping.

And before Isaias was gone out of the middle of the court, the word of the Lord came to him, saying:

Go back, and tell Ezechias, the captain of my people: Thus saith the Lord, the God of David, thy father: I have heard thy prayer, and I have seen thy tears: and behold I have healed thee: on the third day thou shalt go up to the temple of the Lord.

And 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 this city for my own sake, and for David, my servant's sake.

And Ezechias had said to Isaias: What shall be the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I will go up to the temple of the Lord the third day?

And Isaias said to him: This shall be the sign from the Lord, that the Lord will do the word which he hath spoken: Wilt thou that the shadow go forward ten lines, or that it go back so many degrees?

And Isaias, the prophet, called upon the Lord, and he brought the shadow ten degrees backwards by the lines, by which it had already gone down on the dial of Achaz.

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

Behold the days shall come, that all that is in thy house, and that thy fathers have laid up in store unto this day, shall be carried into Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the Lord.

Ezechias said to Isaias: The word of the Lord, which thou hast spoken, is good: let peace and truth be in my days.

And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the idols of the nations, which the Lord destroyed from before the face of the children of Israel.

And he built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord said: In Jerusalem I will put my name.

And he built altars for all the host of heaven, in the two courts of the temple of the Lord.