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1 Look, the LORD’s hand is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear.
2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God;
your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he does not hear.
3 For your hands are stained with blood and your fingers with iniquity;
your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue mutters wickedness.
4 No one pleads with justice, and no one argues a case honestly.
They trust in emptiness and speak falsehood;
they conceive trouble and give birth to iniquity.
5 They hatch vipers’ eggs and weave spiders’ webs.
Whoever eats their eggs will die, and from a crushed egg a viper breaks out.
6 Their webs will not become clothing, nor will they cover themselves with what they make.
Their works are works of iniquity, and acts of violence are in their hands.
7 Their feet run to evil, and they hurry to shed innocent blood.
Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity;
devastation and destruction are in their highways.
8 They do not know the way of peace, and there is no justice in their tracks.
They have made their paths crooked;
whoever walks in them does not know peace.
9 Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us.
We wait for light, but look, darkness;
for brightness, but we walk in gloom.
10 We grope for the wall like the blind;
we grope like those without eyes.
We stumble at noon as at twilight;
among the vigorous we are like the dead.
11 We all growl like bears and moan mournfully like doves.
We wait for justice, but there is none;
for salvation, but it is far from us.
12 For our rebellions are many before you, and our sins testify against us.
Our rebellions are with us, and we know our iniquities:
13 rebelling and denying the LORD, turning back from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering lying words from the heart.
14 Justice is driven back, and righteousness stands far away, for truth has stumbled in the public square, and uprightness cannot enter.
15 Truth is missing, and whoever turns from evil becomes prey.
The LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice.
16 He saw that there was no one, and was appalled that no one interceded.
So his own arm brought him salvation, and his righteousness upheld him.
17 He put on righteousness as 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 robe.
18 According to their deeds, so he will repay: wrath to his adversaries, repayment to his enemies;
to the coastlands he will give repayment.
19 From the west they will fear the name of the LORD, and from the rising of the sun his glory, for he will come like a pent-up river driven on by the wind of the LORD.
20 “A redeemer will come to Zion, and to those in Jacob who turn from rebellion,” declares the LORD.
21 “As for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the LORD: “My Spirit who is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, will not depart from your mouth, or from the mouth of your offspring, or from the mouth of your offspring’s offspring,” says the LORD, “from now and forever.”