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1See, the Lord ’s arm is not too short to save,[#Num 11.23; Isa 50.2; 58.9]
nor his ear too dull to hear.
2Rather, your iniquities have been barriers[#Isa 1.15; 58.4]
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[#v 13 ; Isa 1.15; 28.15; Jer 2.30]
and your fingers with iniquity;
your lips have spoken lies;
your tongue mutters wickedness.
4No one brings suit justly;[#vv 14, 15 ; Job 15.35; Ps 7.14; Isa 30.12]
no one goes to law honestly;
they rely on empty pleas; they speak lies,
conceiving mischief and bearing iniquity.
5They hatch adders’ eggs[#Job 8.14; Isa 14.29]
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;[#Isa 28.20; 57.12; 58.4]
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,[#Isa 65.2; Rom 3.15–17]
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,[#vv 9, 11, 14; Ps 125.5]
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,[#v 14 ; Isa 5.30; 8.21, 22]
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,[#Deut 28.29; Job 5.14; Isa 8.4, 15; Am 8.9]
groping like those who have no eyes;
we stumble at noon as in the twilight,
among the vigorous as though we were dead.
11We all growl like bears;[#vv 9, 14 ; Isa 38.14; Ezek 7.16]
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,[#Isa 58.1; Jer 14.7]
and our sins testify against us.
Our transgressions indeed are with us,
and we know our iniquities:
13transgressing and denying the Lord[#vv 3, 4 ; Josh 24.27; Isa 30.12; Titus 1.16]
and turning away from following our God,
talking oppression and revolt,
conceiving lying words and uttering them from the heart.
14Justice is turned back,[#Isa 1.21; 48.1]
and deliverance stands at a distance,
for truth stumbles in the public square,
and uprightness cannot enter.
15Truth is lacking,[#Isa 1.21–23; 5.23]
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[#Ps 98.1; Isa 63.5; Ezek 22.30]
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[#Isa 63.2, 3; Eph 6.14; 1 Thess 5.8]
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[#Isa 65.6, 7; 66.6]
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 ,[#Ps 113.3; Isa 66.12]
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,[#Ezek 18.30, 31; Acts 2.38, 39; Rom 11.26, 27]
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.[#Isa 44.3, 26; 54.10; Jer 31.31–34; 32.40]