Isaiah 59:2–13

There’s nothing wrong with God; the wrong is in you.

Your wrongheaded lives caused the split between you and God.

Your sins got between you so that he doesn’t hear.

Your hands are drenched in blood,

your fingers dripping with guilt,

Your lips smeared with lies,

your tongue swollen from muttering obscenities.

No one speaks up for the right,

no one deals fairly.

They trust in illusion, they tell lies,

they get pregnant with mischief and have sin-babies.

They hatch snake eggs and weave spider webs.

Eat an egg and die; break an egg and get a snake!

The spider webs are no good for shirts or shawls.

No one can wear these weavings!

They weave wickedness,

they hatch violence.

They compete in the race to do evil

and run to be the first to murder.

They plan and plot evil, think and breathe evil,

and leave a trail of wrecked lives behind them.

They know nothing about peace

and less than nothing about justice.

They make tortuously twisted roads.

No peace for the wretch who walks down those roads!

^9–11Which means that we’re a far cry from fair dealing,

and we’re not even close to right living.

We long for light but sink into darkness,

long for brightness but stumble through the night.

Like the blind, we inch along a wall,

groping eyeless in the dark.

We shuffle our way in broad daylight,

like the dead, but somehow walking.

We’re no better off than bears, groaning,

and no worse off than doves, moaning.

We look for justice—not a sign of it;

for salvation—not so much as a hint.

^12–15Our wrongdoings pile up before you, God,

our sins stand up and accuse us.

Our wrongdoings stare us down;

we know in detail what we’ve done:

Mocking and denying God,

not following our God,

Spreading false rumors, inciting sedition,

pregnant with lies, muttering malice.