Isaiah 38:14–19

¹¹We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves: we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us.

³I am weary of my crying: my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.

¹⁶¶ But they that escape of them shall escape, and shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, every one for his iniquity.

²⁹I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.

⁷And Huzzab shall be led away captive, she shall be brought up, and her maids shall lead her as with the voice of doves, tabering upon their breasts.

¹²²Be surety for thy servant for good: let not the proud oppress me.

¹²³Mine eyes fail for thy salvation, and for the word of thy righteousness.

¹UNTO thee lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens.

²Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until that he have mercy upon us.

³Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us: for we are exceedingly filled with contempt.

⁴Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease, and with the contempt of the proud.

³Lay down now, put me in a surety with thee; who is he that will strike hands with me?

¹⁷As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help: in our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.

⁴My heart is smitten, and withered like grass; so that I forget to eat my bread.

⁵By reason of the voice of my groaning my bones cleave to my skin.

⁶I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl of the desert.

⁷I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top.

⁸²Mine eyes fail for thy word, saying, When wilt thou comfort me?

⁷Hear me speedily, O Lord: my spirit faileth: hide not thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit.

²⁷And it came to pass, when Ahab heard those words, that he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly.

¹¹Therefore I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

¹MY soul is weary of my life; I will leave my complaint upon myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.

¹⁰And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the Lord, and wept sore.

²⁷And when she came to the man of God to the hill, she caught him by the feet: but Gehazi came near to thrust her away. And the man of God said, Let her alone; for her soul is vexed within her: and the Lord hath hid it from me, and hath not told me.

¹⁰And now, O our God, what shall we say after this? for we have forsaken thy commandments,

²⁵And another dieth in the bitterness of his soul, and never eateth with pleasure.

²⁷Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.

⁸O Lord, what shall I say, when Israel turneth their backs before their enemies!

⁹I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.

¹⁰Remove thy stroke away from me: I am consumed by the blow of thine hand.

³²But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.

¹⁰For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.

¹¹Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.

⁴But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

²⁵My soul cleaveth unto the dust: quicken thou me according to thy word.

³And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.

⁵Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways: behold, thou art wroth; for we have sinned: in those is continuance, and we shall be saved.

¹⁹He is chastened also with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain:

²⁰So that his life abhorreth bread, and his soul dainty meat.

²¹His flesh is consumed away, that it cannot be seen; and his bones that were not seen stick out.

²²Yea, his soul draweth near unto the grave, and his life to the destroyers.

²³If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to shew unto man his uprightness:

²⁴Then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom.

²⁵His flesh shall be fresher than a child’s: he shall return to the days of his youth:

²⁶He shall pray unto God, and he will be favourable unto him: and he shall see his face with joy: for he will render unto man his righteousness.

²⁷He looketh upon men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not;

²⁸He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light.

¹⁷For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;

²⁰Thou, which hast shewed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth.

²⁵I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.

⁶I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God.

¹⁸Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy.

¹⁹He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.

³⁴And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

³O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave: thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.

¹³For great is thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.

²⁵For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.

²⁶I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.

⁶And in my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved.

⁷Lord, by thy favour thou hast made my mountain to stand strong: thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled.

²He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.

²Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people, thou hast covered all their sin. Selah.

¹⁸Then I said, I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand.

²The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor: let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined.

⁴I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that hath no strength:

⁵Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from thy hand.

⁶Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.

¹⁰Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

⁹What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? shall it declare thy truth?

⁵For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?

¹⁷The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence.

¹⁸But we will bless the Lord from this time forth and for evermore. Praise the Lord.

¹⁰Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise thee? Selah.

¹¹Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction?

³³They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation.

²⁶And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.

²⁷Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house:

²⁸For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.

²⁹Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.

³⁰And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.

³¹And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

⁴⁶And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

¹²But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

³²The wicked is driven away in his wickedness: but the righteous hath hope in his death.

⁷And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

¹⁷⁵Let my soul live, and it shall praise thee; and let thy judgments help me.

⁹Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons’ sons;

³Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.

⁴We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done.

⁵For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children:

⁶That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children:

¹⁹And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

²⁶And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service?

²⁷That ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And the people bowed the head and worshipped.

¹⁴¶ And it shall be when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What is this? that thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage:

¹⁵And it came to pass, when Pharaoh would hardly let us go, that the Lord slew all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man, and the firstborn of beast: therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all that openeth the matrix, being males; but all the firstborn of my children I redeem.

¹⁹For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.

³Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.

²¹And he spake unto the children of Israel, saying, When your children shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean these stones?

²²Then ye shall let your children know, saying, Israel came over this Jordan on dry land.

¹⁷I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.

⁴One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts.

²While I live will I praise the Lord: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being.

¹⁰Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

⁴I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.