Separated from God

¹Behold, the Lord ’s hand is not shortened,[#Num. 11:23; Is. 50:2; Jer. 32:17]

That it cannot save;

Nor His ear heavy,

That it cannot hear.

²But your iniquities have separated you from your God;

And your sins have hidden His face from you,

So that He will not hear.

³For your hands are defiled with blood,[#Is. 1:15, 21; Jer. 2:30, 34; Ezek. 7:23; Hos. 4:2]

And your fingers with iniquity;

Your lips have spoken lies,

Your tongue has muttered perversity.

⁴No one calls for justice,

Nor does any plead for truth.

They trust in empty words and speak lies;

They conceive evil and bring forth iniquity.

⁵They hatch vipers’ eggs and weave the spider’s web;

He who eats of their eggs dies,

And from that which is crushed a viper breaks out.

⁶Their webs will not become garments,[#Job 8:14]

Nor will they cover themselves with their works;

Their works are works of iniquity,

And the act of violence is in their hands.

⁷Their feet run to evil,[#Prov. 1:16; Rom. 3:15]

And they make haste to shed innocent blood;

Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity;

Wasting and destruction are in their paths.

⁸The way of peace they have not known,[#Is. 57:20, 21]

And there is no justice in their ways;

They have made themselves crooked paths;

Whoever takes that way shall not know peace.

Sin Confessed

⁹Therefore justice is far from us,

Nor does righteousness overtake us;

We look for light, but there is darkness!

For brightness, but we walk in blackness!

¹⁰We grope for the wall like the blind,[#Deut. 28:29; Job 5:14; Amos 8:9]

And we grope as if we had no eyes;

We stumble at noonday as at twilight;

We are as dead men in desolate places.

¹¹We all growl like bears,

And moan sadly like doves;

We look for justice, but there is none;

For salvation, but it is far from us.

¹²For our transgressions are multiplied before You,[#Is. 24:5; 58:1]

And our sins testify against us;

For our transgressions are with us,

And as for our iniquities, we know them:

¹³In transgressing and lying against the Lord ,

And departing from our God,

Speaking oppression and revolt,

Conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.

¹⁴Justice is turned back,

And righteousness stands afar off;

For truth is fallen in the street,

And equity cannot enter.

¹⁵So truth fails,

And he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.

The Redeemer of Zion

Then the Lord saw it, and it displeased Him

That there was no justice.

¹⁶He saw that there was no man,[#Is. 41:28; 63:5; 64:7; Ezek. 22:30]

And wondered that there was no intercessor;

Therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him;

And His own righteousness, it sustained Him.

¹⁷For He put on righteousness as a breastplate,[#Eph. 6:14, 17; 1 Thess. 5:8]

And a helmet of salvation on His head;

He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing,

And was clad with zeal as a cloak.

¹⁸According to their deeds, accordingly He will repay,[#Is. 63:6; Rom. 2:6]

Fury to His adversaries,

Recompense to His enemies;

The coastlands He will fully repay.

¹⁹So shall they fear[#Ps. 113:3; Mal. 1:11]

The name of the Lord from the west,

And His glory from the rising of the sun;

When the enemy comes in like a flood,

The Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.

²⁰“The Redeemer will come to Zion,[#Rom. 11:26]

And to those who turn from transgression in Jacob,”

Says the Lord .

²¹“As for Me,” says the Lord , “this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants’ descendants,” says the Lord , “from this time and forevermore.”[#(Heb. 8:10; 10:16)]