Anonymous (Septuagint) · a new plain-English translation from the original language
1| Then the prophet Elijah rose up like fire, and his word burned like a torch;
2| he brought a famine upon them, and in his zeal he reduced their numbers;
3| through the Lord's own command he closed off the sky above, and in that same way he called fire down three times.
4| How glorious you were, Elijah, in your wonders! And who is like you, to boast as you did?
5| You who raised the dead from death and from Hades by the word of the Most High;
6| who brought down kings to destruction, and men honored from their beds;
7| who heard rebuke at Sinai and judgments of vengeance at Horeb;
8| who anointed kings for retribution, and prophets to succeed after him;
9| who was carried aloft inside a storm of flame, riding a chariot drawn by horses of fire;
10| who is named in the warnings for the appointed times, to calm wrath before it flares into rage, and to bring the father's heart back toward his child, and to bring back the tribes descended from Jacob.
11| Blessed are those who saw you, and those who have been adorned in love, for we also shall live a true life.
12| Elijah, who was covered in the whirlwind — and Elisha was filled with his spirit; in his days he was not shaken by any ruler, and no one brought him into subjection.
13| No word overpowered him, and in his sleep his body prophesied.
14| In his life he did wonders, and in his death his deeds were marvelous.
15| For all this the people did not repent, and they did not turn away from their sins, until they were carried off as plunder from their land and scattered throughout the whole earth; and the people were left very few, with a ruler still for the house of David.
16| Some of them did what was pleasing, but some multiplied sins.
17| Hezekiah fortified his city, and brought the Gog into its midst; he dug through the sheer rock with iron, and built cisterns for water.
18| In his days Sennacherib came up and sent Rabshakeh, and set out; and he raised his hand against Zion, and boasted greatly in his arrogance.
19| Then their hearts and hands were shaken, and they writhed like women in labor;
20| and they cried out to the merciful Lord, stretching their hands out toward him. And the Holy One in heaven heard them at once, and rescued them through Isaiah's hand;
21| he struck the camp of the Assyrians, and his angel wiped them out.
22| For Hezekiah did what pleased the Lord, and held firmly to the paths his father David had walked, as Isaiah the prophet — great and faithful in his vision — commanded him.
23| In his days the sun went backward, and he added life to the king;
24| with a great spirit he saw the last things, and comforted the mourners in Zion;
25| he showed the things to come, even to the end of the age, and the hidden things before they came to pass.