Isaiah 59:1-21
59 Here, Jehovah’s hand is not too short to save nor his ear too heavy to hear,
2 but your guilts have been making a separation between you and your God and your sins have veiled his face from you to keep him from hearing.
3 For your hands are polluted with blood and your fingers with villainy, your lips speak falsely, your tongues whisper dishonesty;
4 there is no one who argues a case fairly and no one who comes into court in good faith; there is trust in nothings and talk of futilities, there is breeding of trouble and giving birth to villainy.
5 They hatch cobra eggs and weave spider webs: he who eats any of their eggs will die, and any that is stepped on cracks open to let out a sand-adder;
6 their webs will not make a garment, and they will not cover themselves with their work. Their work is work of villainy, and they have in hand jobs of ruffianism;
7 their feet race to anything bad, and they are quick at shedding innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of villainy; rapine and ruin are on their thoroughfares,
8 they do not know the road to peace and there is no law and order on their routes, they have twisted their paths; anyone who travels thereon does not know what peace is.
9 That is why justice keeps at a distance from us and right does not get to us, we hope for light and find darkness, for radiance and we walk in murky gloom;
10 we feel along walls like blind men, feel our way as if eyeless, we stumble at noon as if it were dusk; we have a smell like dead men;
11 * we are all growling like bears and making moan like doves; we hope for justice and there is none, for salvation when it is far away from us,
12 because our crimes are many before you and our sins testify against us.
13 * For we have our crimes with us, and our guilt we know: insubordination and insincerity toward Jehovah and falling back from following our God, talking to suppress the truth and make false insinuations; evolving and emitting lying words,
14 justice being pushed back and right standing at a distance, because truth stumbles in the city square and fair dealing cannot get in;
15 truth has become a rarity, one who avoids evil is a mark for depredations.
16 And Jehovah saw and was displeased that there was no justice, and he saw there was not a man, and was shocked that there was no one who intervened; and his own arm made good his cause, and the rightness of his stand held him up.
17 And he put on right like a hauberk, with a helmet of salvation on his head, and dressed himself in garments of vengeance and wrapped himself in jealousy like a robe;
18 * the like deeds for the like he will pay back, ire to his foes, requital to his enemies,
19 *** and on the west they shall see Jehovah’s fame, and toward the sunrise his glory, when a foe comes in like a river, with Jehovah’s spirit carrying the standard for him.
20 * And there will come from Sion a friend in need, and for those in Jacob who turn back from crime, quoth Jehovah.
21 And for my part this is my covenant with them, says Jehovah: my spirit that is on you and my words that I have placed in your mouth shall not move from your mouth and from the mouths of your offspring and of your offspring’s offspring, says Jehovah, from now on, forever.
Footnotes
^ 59:11 Codd. dusk, over (or among) burly (unc.) men like dead men Var.
^ 59:13 (last half) Unc.; susp.
^ 59:18 Var. enemies; to the foreign coasts he will pay back requital; and
^ 59:19 Var. shall fear
^ 59:19 Or Jehovah’s name
^ 59:19 (last part) Unc.
^ 59:20 Var. and he will turn back crime from Jacob
