Isaiah 59

1Look, Yahweh’s hand is not too short to save, nor is his ear too dull to hear.

2But your iniquities have become those dividing between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, from hearing.

3For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken falsehood, your tongue mutters injustice.

4No one calls for righteousness, and no one pleads with faithfulness; trusting in emptiness and speaking falsehood, they conceive trouble and give birth to wickedness.

5They hatch viper's eggs and weave spider's webs; whoever eats from their eggs dies, and what is crushed breaks open into a viper.

6Their webs will not become clothing, nor will they cover themselves with their deeds; their deeds are deeds of wickedness, and the work of violence is in their hands.

7Their feet run to evil, and they hurry to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; devastation and destruction are in their highways.

8They do not know the way of peace, and there is no justice in their paths; they have made their roads crooked for themselves; everyone who walks in them does not know peace.

9Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not overtake us; we hope for light, but look—darkness; for brightness, but we walk in deep gloom.

10We grope for the wall like the blind; like those without eyes we grope. We stumble at noon as in the twilight; among the vigorous we are like the dead.

11We all growl like bears, and like doves we moan continually; we hope for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us.

12For our transgressions are many before you, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and we know our iniquities.

13transgressing and denying Yahweh, and turning back from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.

14Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far off; for truth has stumbled in the street, and uprightness cannot enter.

15So truth was missing, and whoever turned away from evil was plundered. Yahweh saw, and it was evil in his eyes that there was no justice.

16He saw that there was no man, and he was appalled that there was no one to intercede; so his own arm brought him salvation, 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 zeal as in a cloak.

18According to their deeds, so he will repay: wrath to his adversaries, repayment to his enemies; to the coastlands he will repay what is due.

19So they will fear the name of Yahweh from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun; for he will come like a rushing river, driven by the breath of Yahweh.

20And a Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those in Jacob who turn from transgression, declares Yahweh.

21And as for me, this is my covenant with them, says Yahweh: my Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, or from the mouth of your offspring, or from the mouth of your offspring’s offspring, says Yahweh, from now and forever.