Isaiah 59

¹Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it can’t save; nor his ear dull, that it can’t hear.

²But your iniquities have separated you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will 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 sues in righteousness, and no one pleads in truth. They trust in vanity and speak lies. They conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity.

⁵They hatch adders’ eggs and weave the spider’s web. He who eats of their eggs dies; and that which is crushed breaks out into a viper.

⁶Their webs won’t become garments. They won’t cover themselves with their works. Their works are works of iniquity, and acts of violence are in their hands.

⁷Their feet run to evil, and they hurry to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity. Desolation and destruction are in their paths.

⁸They don’t know the way of peace; and there is no justice in their ways. They have made crooked paths for themselves; whoever goes in them doesn’t know peace.

⁹Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness doesn’t overtake us. We look for light, but see darkness; for brightness, but we walk in obscurity.

¹⁰We grope for the wall like the blind. Yes, we grope as those who have no eyes. We stumble at noon as if it were twilight. Among those who are strong, we are like dead men.

¹¹We all roar like bears and moan sadly like doves. We look for justice, but there is none, for salvation, but it is far off from us.