Isaiah 59

Separated from God

59Behold, the Lord’s hand is not ^ashortened,

That it cannot save;

Nor His ear heavy,

That it cannot hear.

²But your iniquities have separated you from your God;

And your sins have hidden His face from you,

So that He will ^bnot hear.

³For ^cyour hands are defiled with ¹blood,

And your fingers with iniquity;

Your lips have spoken lies,

Your tongue has muttered perversity.

⁴No one calls for justice,

Nor does any plead for truth.

They trust in ^dempty words and speak lies;

^eThey conceive ²evil and bring forth iniquity.

⁵They hatch vipers’ eggs and weave the spider’s web;

He who eats of their eggs dies,

And from that which is crushed a viper breaks out.

^6fTheir webs will not become garments,

Nor will they cover themselves with their works;

Their works are works of iniquity,

And the act of violence is in their hands.

^7gTheir feet run to evil,

And they make haste to shed ^hinnocent blood;

ⁱTheir thoughts are thoughts of iniquity;

Wasting and ^jdestruction are in their paths.

⁸The way of ^kpeace they have not known,

And there is no justice in their ways;

^lThey have made themselves crooked paths;

Whoever takes that way shall not know peace.

Sin Confessed

⁹Therefore justice is far from us,

Nor does righteousness overtake us;

^mWe look for light, but there is darkness!

For brightness, but we walk in blackness!

¹⁰ⁿWe grope for the wall like the blind,

And we grope as if we had no eyes;

We stumble at noonday as at twilight;

We are as dead men in desolate places.

¹¹We all growl like bears,

And ^omoan sadly like doves;

We look for justice, but there is none;

For salvation, but it is far from us.

¹²For our ^ptransgressions are multiplied before You,

And our sins testify against us;

For our transgressions are with us,

And as for our iniquities, we know them:

¹³In transgressing and lying against the Lord,

And departing from our God,

Speaking oppression and revolt,

Conceiving and uttering ^qfrom the heart words of falsehood.

¹⁴Justice is turned back,

And righteousness stands afar off;

For truth is fallen in the street,

And equity cannot enter.

¹⁵So truth fails,

And he who departs from evil makes himself a ^rprey.

The Redeemer of Zion

Then the Lord saw it, and ³it displeased Him

That there was no justice.

^16sHe saw that there was no man,

And ^twondered that there was no intercessor;

^uTherefore His own arm brought salvation for Him;

And His own righteousness, it sustained Him.

^17vFor He put on righteousness as a breastplate,

And a helmet of salvation on His head;

He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing,

And was clad with zeal as a cloak.

^18wAccording to their deeds, accordingly He will repay,

Fury to His adversaries,

Recompense to His enemies;

The coastlands He will fully repay.

^19xSo shall they fear

The name of the Lord from the west,

And His glory from the rising of the sun;

When the enemy comes in ^ylike a flood,

The Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.

²⁰“The ^zRedeemer will come to Zion,

And to those who turn from transgression in Jacob,”

Says the Lord.

²¹“As ^afor Me,” says the Lord, “this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants’ descendants,” says the Lord, “from this time and forevermore.”