Isaiah, Chapter 59

1. Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor is his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:    2. But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.    3. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue has muttered perverseness.    4. None calls for justice, nor does any plead for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.    5. They hatch serpent's eggs, and weave the spider's web: he that eats of their eggs dies, and that which is crushed breaks out into a viper.    6. Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands.    7. Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.    8. The way of peace they know not; and there is no justice in their goings: they have made for themselves crooked paths: whoever goes in them shall not know peace.    9. Therefore is judgment far from us, neither does justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness.    10. We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places like dead men.    11. We all roar like bears, and mourn bitterly like doves: we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us.    12. For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us: for our transgressions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them;    13. In transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.    14. And justice is turned away backward, and righteousness stands afar off: for truth has fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.    15. Yea, truth fails; and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey: and the LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice.    16. And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation to him; and his righteousness, it sustained him.    17. For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was covered with zeal like a cloak.    18. According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies; to the islands he will repay recompense.    19. So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.    20. And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob, says the LORD.    21. As for me, this is my covenant with them, says the LORD; My spirit that is upon you, and my words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, nor out of the mouth of your children, nor out of the mouth of your children's children, says the LORD, from this time on and for ever.