Chapter 59

¹ Has the hand of the Lord no power to

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save? or has he made his ear heavy, so that he should not hear? ² Nay, your iniquities separate between you and God, and because of your sins has he turned away his face from you, so as not to have mercy upon you. ³ For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with sins; your lips also have spoken iniquity, and your tongue meditates unrighteousness.

⁴ None speaks justly, neither is there true judgment: they trust in vanities, and speak empty words; for they conceive trouble, and bring forth iniquity. ⁵ They have hatched asps' eggs, and weave a spider's web: and he that is going to eat of their eggs, having crushed an addled egg, has found also in it a basilisk. ⁶ Their web shall not become a garment, nor shall they at all clothe themselves with their works; for their works are works of iniquity. ⁷ And ¹their feet run to wickedness, swift to shed blood; their thoughts also are thoughts ²of murder; destruction and misery are in their ways; ⁸ and the way of peace they know not, neither is there judgment in their ways; for their paths by which they go are crooked, and they know not peace.

⁹ Therefore has judgment departed from them, and righteousness shall not overtake them: while they waited for light, darkness came upon them; while they waited for brightness, they walked in perplexity. ¹⁰ They shall feel for the wall as blind men, and shall feel for it as if they had no eyes: and they shall feel at noon-day as at midnight; they shall groan as dying men. ¹¹ They shall proceed together as a bear and as a dove: we have waited for judgment, and there is no salvation, it is gone far from us.

¹² For our iniquity is great before thee, and our sins have risen up against us: for our iniquities are in us, and we know our unrighteous deeds. ¹³ We have sinned, and dealt falsely, and revolted from our God: we have spoken unrighteous words, and have been disobedient; we have conceived and uttered from our heart unrighteous words. ¹⁴ And we have turned judgment back, and righteousness has departed afar off: for truth is consumed in their ways, and they could not pass by a straight path. ¹⁵ And truth has been taken away, and they have turned aside their mind from understanding.

And the Lord saw it, and it pleased him not that there was no judgment. ¹⁶ And he looked, and there was no man, and he observed, and there was none to help: so he defended them with his arm, and stablished them with his mercy. ¹⁷ And he put on righteousness as a breast-plate, and placed the helmet of salvation on his head; and he clothed himself with the garment of vengeance, and with his cloak, ¹⁸ as one about to render a recompence, even reproach to his adversaries. ¹⁹ So shall they of the west fear the name of the Lord, and they that come from the rising of the sun his glorious name: for the wrath of the Lord shall come as a mighty river, it shall come with fury.

²⁰ And ³the deliverer shall come for Sion's sake, and shall turn away ungodliness from

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Jacob. ²¹ And this shall be my covenant with them, said the Lord; My Spirit which is upon thee, and the words which I have put in thy mouth, shall never fail from thy mouth, nor from the mouth of thy seed, for the Lord has spoken it, henceforth and for ever.