Isaiah 59

¹See, the Lord’s hand is not too short to save,

nor his ear too dull to hear.

²Rather, your iniquities have been barriers

between you and your God,

and your sins have hidden his face from you

so that he does not hear.

³For your hands are defiled with blood,

and your fingers with iniquity;

your lips have spoken lies,

your tongue mutters wickedness.

⁴No one brings suit justly,

no one goes to law honestly;

they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies,

conceiving mischief and begetting iniquity.

⁵They hatch adders’ eggs,

and weave the spider’s web;

whoever eats their eggs dies,

and the crushed egg hatches out a viper.

⁶Their webs cannot serve as clothing;

they cannot cover themselves with what they make.

Their works are works of iniquity,

and deeds of violence are in their hands.

⁷Their feet run to evil,

and they rush to shed innocent blood;

their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity,

desolation and destruction are in their highways.

⁸The way of peace they do not know,

and there is no justice in their paths.

Their roads they have made crooked;

no one who walks in them knows peace.

⁹Therefore justice is far from us,

and righteousness does not reach us;

we wait for light, and lo! there is darkness;

and for brightness, but we walk in gloom.

¹⁰We grope like the blind along a wall,

groping like those who have no eyes;

we stumble at noon as in the twilight,

among the vigorous as though we were dead.

¹¹We all growl like bears;

like doves we moan mournfully.

We wait for justice, but there is none;

for salvation, but it is far from us.

¹²For our transgressions before you are many,

and our sins testify against us.

Our transgressions indeed are with us,

and we know our iniquities:

¹³transgressing, and denying the Lord,

and turning away from following our God,

talking oppression and revolt,

conceiving lying words and uttering them from the heart.

¹⁴Justice is turned back,

and righteousness stands at a distance;

for truth stumbles in the public square,

and uprightness cannot enter.

¹⁵Truth is lacking,

and whoever turns from evil is despoiled.

The Lord saw it, and it displeased him

that there was no justice.

¹⁶He saw that there was no one,

and was appalled that there was no one to intervene;

so his own arm brought him victory,

and his righteousness upheld him.

¹⁷He put on righteousness like a breastplate,

and a helmet of salvation on his head;

he put on garments of vengeance for clothing,

and wrapped himself in fury as in a mantle.

¹⁸According to their deeds, so will he repay;

wrath to his adversaries, requital to his enemies;

to the coastlands he will render requital.

¹⁹So those in the west shall fear the name of the Lord,

and those in the east, his glory;

for he will come like a pent-up stream

that the wind of the Lord drives on.

²⁰And he will come to Zion as Redeemer,

to those in Jacob who turn from transgression, says the Lord.