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 come 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 anyone plead for truth; they trust in vanity and speak lies. They conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity.
5. They hatch adders’ eggs and weave the spider’s web; he who eats their eggs dies, and that which is crushed breaks out into a viper.
6. Their webs shall not become clothing, nor shall they cover themselves with their works; their works are works of iniquity, and the acts of violence are 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. They have not known the way of peace, and there is no justice in their ways. They have made crooked paths for themselves; whoever goes therein shall not know peace.
9. Therefore justice is far from us; nor does righteousness overtake us. We wait for light, but behold, darkness; for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows.
10. We grope along the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes. We stumble at noonday as in the night; among those who are strong, we are like dead men.
11. We all roar like bears, and mourn grievously like doves; we look for justice, but there is none, we look for salvation, yet it is far 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 rebellion and denial of the LORD, and turning away from our God, talking perversity and revolt, conceiving and speaking from the heart words of falsehood.
14. And justice is driven backward, and righteousness stands afar off; for truth has fallen in the street, and uprightness cannot enter.
15. Yea, truth fails; and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. And the LORD saw, and it was evil in His eyes that there was no justice.
16. And He saw that there was no man, and was astonished that there was no intercessor. Therefore His own arm brought salvation to Him; and His righteousness sustained Him,
17. For He put on righteousness like a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation upon 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 foes, deed for deed to His enemies. He will repay their deeds to the isles.
19. So they shall 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 make him flee.
20. “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 seed, nor out of the mouth of your seed’s seed,”says the LORD, “from now on and forever.”
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