1Look, Yahweh’s hand is not too short to save, nor is his ear too heavy to hear.
2But it is your iniquities that have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins that have hidden his face from you, so that he does not hear.
3For your palms are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken falsehood, your tongue mutters injustice.
4No one calls out in righteousness, and no one goes to court in truthfulness; they trust in emptiness and speak deceit, conceiving trouble and giving birth to iniquity.
5They hatch adders’ eggs and weave spiders’ webs; whoever eats their eggs dies, and if one is crushed, a viper breaks out.
6Their webs cannot become clothing, nor can they cover themselves with their works; their works are works of iniquity, and deeds of violence are in their palms.
7Their feet run to evil, and they hurry to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; ruin and destruction are in their highways.
8The way of peace they have not known, and there is no justice in their tracks; they have made their paths crooked for themselves—no one who treads on them knows peace.
9Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us; we hope for light, but look—there is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in deep gloom.
10We grope for the wall like the blind, we grope like those without eyes; we stumble at noon as in the twilight, among the vigorous we are like the dead.
11We all growl like bears, and moan mournfully like doves; we hope for justice, but there is none, for salvation, but it is far from us.
12For our transgressions are many before you, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and our iniquities—we know them:
13transgressing and denying Yahweh, and turning back from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.
14So justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far off; for truth has stumbled in the public square, and uprightness cannot enter.
15Truth is missing, and whoever turns from evil is plundered. And Yahweh saw, and it was evil in his eyes that there was no justice.
16He saw that there was no man, and he was appalled that there was no one to intervene; so his own arm brought him salvation, and his righteousness—it upheld him.
17He put on righteousness like a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head; he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak.
18According to their deeds, so will he repay: wrath to his adversaries, requital to his enemies; to the coastlands he will repay their due.
19So they will fear the name of Yahweh from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun; for he will come like a pent-up river, driven by the breath of Yahweh.
20And a redeemer will come to Zion, and to those in Jacob who turn from transgression, declares Yahweh.
21As for me, this is my covenant with them, says Yahweh: My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, or from the mouth of your offspring, or from the mouth of your offspring’s offspring, says Yahweh, from now and forever.
Open in the interactive reader →Where this passage connects across Scripture — each link typed and reasoned, part of the AIT Bible Nexus Chart.