Isaiah 59

Injustice and Oppression to Be Punished

⁵⁹See, the Lord’s arm 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 bearing 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 ways.

Their roads they have made crooked;

no one who walks in them knows peace.^*

⁹Therefore justice is far from us,

and deliverance does not reach us;

we wait for light, but there is only 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^c 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 deliverance 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.^*

²¹And as for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord: my spirit that is upon you and my words that I have put in your mouth shall not depart out of your mouth or out of the mouths of your children or out of the mouths of your children’s children, says the Lord, from now on and forever.^*