The Song of Hezekiah

Ant. From the gate of hell * deliver my soul, O Lord.

I said: in the cutting off of my days:

I shall go to the gates of the grave.

I am deprived of the residue of my years:

I said, I shall not see the Lord, even the Lord in the land of the living.

I shall behold man no more:

with the inhabitants of the world.

Mine age is departed:

and is removed from me as a shepherd's tent.

I have cut off like a weaver my life:

he will cut me off with pining sickness.

From day even to night:

wilt thou make an end of me.

I reckoned till morning that, as a lion, so will he break all my bones:

from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.

Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter:

I did mourn as a dove.

Mine eyes fail with looking upward:

O Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me.

What shall I say? He hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath done it:

I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul.

O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit:

so wilt thou recover me, and make me to live.

Behold, for peace I had great bitterness; but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption:

for thou hast cast all my sins behind my back.

For the grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee:

they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day:

the father to the children shall make known thy truth.

The Lord was ready to save me:

therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the days of our life in the house of the Lord.

Ant. From the gate of hell * deliver my soul, O Lord.