Isaiah 59

1 Does the Lord’s hand lack power to save, or has his ear grown too dull to hear?

2 No, your sins separate you from God. Because of your sins, he turned his face from you and did not have mercy on you.

3 Your hands are stained with blood and your fingers with sins. Your lips spoke lawlessness, and your tongue thinks about wrongdoing.

4 No one speaks justly, and there is no true judgment. They trust in empty things and speak empty words. They conceive trouble and produce lawlessness.

5 They hatch vipers’ eggs and weave a spider’s web. Whoever is about to eat their eggs crushes a spoiled egg and finds a basilisk inside it.

6 Their web will not become clothing, and they will never clothe themselves with their works, because their works are works of lawlessness.

7 Their feet run toward evil and are quick to shed blood. Their thoughts are the thoughts of fools; destruction and misery fill their paths.

8 They do not know the path of peace, and there is no judgment on their roads. The paths they follow are crooked, and they do not know peace.

9 Therefore judgment has departed from them, and righteousness will not catch up with them. They waited for light, but darkness came. They waited for brightness, but walked in confusion.

10 They will feel along a wall like blind people, as though they had no eyes. They will fall at midday as though it were midnight and groan like dying people.

11 They will move together like a bear and a dove. We waited for judgment, but there is none; rescue has gone far from us.

12 Our lawlessness is great before you, and our sins rose against us. Our lawless deeds are within us, and we know our wrongdoing.

13 We acted ungodly and deceitfully, and turned away from our God. We spoke words of wrongdoing and disobeyed. We conceived and uttered words of wrongdoing from our hearts.

14 We turned judgment back, and righteousness departed far away. Truth was consumed on their paths, and they could not walk a straight road.

15 Truth was taken away, and they turned their minds from understanding. The Lord saw this and was displeased that there was no judgment.

16 He looked, but there was no one. He observed, but no one offered help. So he defended them with his arm and established them by his mercy.

17 He put on righteousness like a breastplate, placed the helmet of rescue on his head, and clothed himself with vengeance like a garment and cloak,

18 like someone ready to repay disgrace to his adversaries.

19 People in the west will revere the Lord’s name, and those from the sunrise his glorious name. The Lord’s wrath will come like a mighty river, coming with fury.

20 The one who rescues will come for Zion’s sake and turn ungodliness away from Jacob.

21 This will be my covenant with them, says the Lord: My Spirit on you and the words I placed in your mouth will never leave your mouth or the mouths of your offspring, says the Lord, from now on and forever.