Isaiah 59

¹Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save, nor His ear too dull to hear.

²But your iniquities have built 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 stained with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue mutters injustice.

⁴No one calls for justice; no one pleads his case honestly. They rely on empty pleas; they tell lies; they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity.

⁵They hatch the eggs of vipers and weave a spider’s web. Whoever eats their eggs will die; crack one open, and a viper is hatched.

⁶Their cobwebs cannot be made into clothing, and they cannot cover themselves with their works. Their deeds are sinful deeds, and acts of violence are in their hands.

⁷Their feet run to evil; they are swift to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are sinful thoughts; ruin and destruction lie in their wake.

⁸The way of peace they have not known, and there is no justice in their tracks. They have turned them into crooked paths; no one who treads on them will know peace.

⁹Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We hope for light, but there is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in gloom.

¹⁰Like the blind, we feel our way along the wall, groping like those without eyes. We stumble at midday as in the twilight; among the vigorous we are like the dead.

¹¹We all growl like bears and moan like doves. We hope for justice, but find none, for salvation, but it is far from us.