Isaiah 58:1–59:21

aCry †aloud, bspare not,

Lift up thy voice clike a trumpet,

And dshew my people their transgression,

And the house of Jacob their sins.

2  Yet they seek me daily,

And edelight to know my ways,

As a nation that did righteousness,

And forsook not the ordinance of their God:

They ask of me the ordinances of justice;

fThey take delight in approaching to God.

3  gWherefore have we fasted, hsay they, and thou seest not?

Wherefore have we iafflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge?

Behold, kin the day of your fast ye find pleasure,

And lexact all your ||†mlabours.

4  Behold, nye fast for strife and debate,

And to smite with the fist of wickedness:

||Ye shall not fast as ye do this day,

oTo make your voice to be heard on high.

5  pIs it such a fast that I have chosen?

||A day for a man to iafflict his soul?

Is it to bow down his head as qa bulrush,

And rto spread ssackcloth and ashes under him?

Wilt thou call this a fast,

And an acceptable day to the Lord?

6  Is not this the fast that I have chosen?

To loose tthe bands of wickedness,

uTo undo †the heavy burdens,

And xto let the †oppressed go free,

And that ye break every yoke?

7  Is it not yzto deal thy bread to the hungry,

And ythat thou bring the poor that are ||cast out ato thy house?

zbWhen thou seest the naked, that thou cover him;

And that thou hide not thyself from cthine own flesh?

8  dThen shall thy light break forth as the morning,

And thine ehealth shall spring forth speedily:

And thy righteousness shall go before thee;

The glory of the Lord †shall be thy rereward.

9  Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer;

Thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am.

If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke,

fThe putting forth of the finger, and gspeaking vanity;

10  And if thou hdraw out thy soul ito the hungry,

And ksatisfy the afflicted soul;

dThen shall thy light rise in obscurity,

And thy darkness be as the noonday:

11  And the Lord shall guide thee lcontinually,

And ksatisfy thy soul in †drought,

And make fat thy bones:

And thou shalt be mlike a watered garden,

And like a spring of water, whose waters †fail not.

12  And they that shall be of thee nshall build the old owaste places:

Thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations;

And thou shalt be called, pThe repairer of the breach,

The restorer of paths to dwell in.

13  If qthou turn away thy foot from the sabbath,

From doing thy pleasure on my holy day;

And call the sabbath ra delight,

The holy of the Lord, honourable;

And shalt honour him, not doing rrthine own ways,

Nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:

14  Then sshalt thou delight thyself in the Lord;

And I will tcause thee to ride tuupon the high places of the earth,

And feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father:

vFor the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

59 Behold, athe Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save;

Neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:

2  But byour iniquities have separated between you and your God,

And your sins ||have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.

3  For cyour hands dare defiled with blood,

And your fingers with iniquity;

Your lips ehave spoken lies,

Your tongue hath mmuttered perverseness.

4  None calleth for justice, nor any fpleadeth for truth:

They trust gin vanity, and espeak lies;

hiThey conceive mischief, and ibring forth iniquity.

5  They hatch ||cockatrice’ eggs,

And weave kthe spider’s web:

He that eateth of their eggs dieth,

And ||lthat which is crushed breaketh out into ma viper.

6  kTheir webs shall not become garments,

Neither shall they cover themselves with their works:

Their works are works of iniquity,

And the act of violence is in their hands.

7  noTheir feet run to evil,

nAnd they make haste to shed innocent blood:

Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity;

opWasting and †destruction are in their paths.

8  oThe way of peace they know not;

And there is no ||judgment in their qgoings:

rThey have made them crooked paths:

Whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.

9  Therefore is judgment far from us,

Neither doth justice overtake us:

sWe wait for light, but behold obscurity;

For brightness, but twe walk in darkness.

10  uWe grope for the wall like the blind,

And we grope as if we had no eyes:

We stumble uat noonday as in the night;

We are in desolate places as dead men.

11  We roar all like bears,

And vmourn sore like doves:

sWe look for judgment, but there is none;

For salvation, but it is far off from us.

12  For our transgressions are multiplied before thee,

And our sins testify against us:

For our transgressions are with us;

And as for our iniquities, wwe know them;

13  In transgressing and lying against the Lord,

And xdeparting away from our God,

Speaking oppression and revolt,

Conceiving and yuttering zfrom the heart ewords of falsehood.

14  And judgment is xturned away backward,

And justice standeth afar off:

For truth is fallen in the street,

And aequity cannot enter.

15  Yea, truth bfaileth;

And he that departeth from evil ||cmaketh himself a prey:

And the Lord saw it, and †it displeased him

That there was no judgment.

16  And dhe saw that there was no man,

And ewondered that there was no fintercessor:

gTherefore hhis arm brought salvation unto him;

And his righteousness, dit sustained him.

17  For ihe put on righteousness as a breastplate,

And an helmet of salvation upon his head;

And he put on the garments of kvengeance for clothing,

And was clad with zeal ias a cloke.

18  lAccording to their †deeds, accordingly mhe will repay,

nFury to his adversaries, recompence to his enemies;

To othe islands he will repay recompence.

19  pSo shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west,

And his glory from the rising of the sun.

When the enemy shall come in qlike a flood,

The Spirit of the Lord shall ||rlift up a standard against him.

20  And sthe Redeemer shall come to Zion,

And unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord.

21  As for me, tthis is my covenant with them, saith the Lord;

My spirit that is upon thee,

And umy words which I have put in thy mouth,

Shall not depart out of thy mouth,

Nor out of the mouth of thy seed,

Nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the Lord,

From henceforth and for ever.