CHAPTER 59
Lo! the hand of the Lord is not abridged, that he may not save, neither his ear is made hard, that he hear not;
but your wickednesses have parted betwixt you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he should not hear.
For why your hands be defouled with blood, and your fingers with wickedness; your lips spake leasing, and your tongue speaketh wickedness.
None there is, that calleth rightful-ness to help, and none is, that deemeth verily; but they trust in nought, and speak vanities; they conceived travail, and childed wickedness.
The have broken eggs of snakes, and made webs of an araneid; he that eateth of the eggs of them, shall die, and that that is nursed, or hatched, shall break out into a cockatrice.
The webs of them shall not be into cloth[ing], neither they shall be covered with their works; the works of them be unprofitable works, and the work of wickedness is in the hands of them.
The feet of them run to evil, and haste to shed out innocent blood; the thoughts of them be unprofitable thoughts; destroying and defouling be in the ways of them.
They knew not the way of peace, and doom is not in the goings of them; the paths of them be bowed to them; each that treadeth in those [or in them], knoweth not peace.
Therefore doom is made far from us, and rightfulness [or rightwiseness] shall not take us; we abided light, and lo! darknesses be; we abided shining, and we went in darknesses.
10 We groped as blind men the wall, and we as without eyes touched; we stumbled in midday, as in darknesses, in dark places, as dead men.
11 All we shall roar as bears, and we shall wail thinking as culvers; we abided doom, and none there is; we abided health, and it is made far from us.
12 For why our wickednesses be multiplied before thee, and our sins answered to us; for our great trespasses be with us, and we knew our wickednesses,
13 to do sin, and to lie against the Lord. And we be turned away, that we went not after the back of our God, that we speak false challenge, and trespassing. We conceived, and spake of heart, words of leasing;
14 and doom was turned aback, and rightfulness [or rightwiseness] stood [a] far; for why truth fell down in the street, and equity, either evenness, might not enter.
15 And truth was made into forgetting, and he that went away from evil, was open to prey, either robbing. And the Lord saw, and it appeared evil in his eyes, for there is no doom.
16 And God saw, that a man is not, and he was anguished, for none there is that runneth to. And his arm shall save to himself, and his rightfulness [or rightwiseness] itself shall confirm him.
17 He is clothed with rightfulness [or rightwiseness] as with an habergeon, and the helmet of health is in his head; he is clothed with [the] clothes of vengeance, and he is covered as with a mantle of fervent working.
18 As to vengeance, as to yielding of indignation to his enemies, and to requiting of time to his adversaries, he shall yield while to [the] isles.
19 And they that be at the west, shall dread the name of the Lord, and they that be at the rising of the sun, shall dread the glory of him; when he shall come as a violent flood, whom the spirit of the Lord compelleth.
20 When [the] again-buyer shall come to Zion, and to them that go again from wickedness in Jacob, saith the Lord.
21 This is my bond of peace with them, saith the Lord; My spirit which is in thee, and my words which I have set in thy mouth, shall not go away from thy mouth, and from the mouth of thy seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and till into without end.