1. Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened,That it cannot save;Nor His ear heavy,That it cannot hear.
2. But your iniquities have separated you from your God;And your sins have hidden His face from you,So 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 perversity.
4. No one calls for justice,Nor does any plead for truth.They trust in empty words and speak lies;They conceive evil and bring forth iniquity.
5. They hatch vipers’ eggs and weave the spider’s web;He who eats of their eggs dies,And from that which is crushed a viper breaks out.
6. Their webs will not become garments,Nor will they cover themselves with their works;Their works are works of iniquity,And the act of violence is 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. The way of peace they have not known,And there is no justice in their ways;They have made themselves crooked paths;Whoever takes that way shall not know peace.
9. Therefore justice is far from us,Nor does righteousness overtake us;We look for light, but there is darkness!For brightness, but we walk in blackness!
10. We grope for the wall like the blind,And we grope as if we had no eyes;We stumble at noonday as at twilight;We are as dead men in desolate places.
11. We all growl like bears,And moan sadly like doves;We look for justice, but there is none;For salvation, but 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 transgressing and lying against the Lord,And departing from our God,Speaking oppression and revolt,Conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.
14. Justice is turned back,And righteousness stands afar off;For truth is fallen in the street,And equity cannot enter.
15. So truth fails,And he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.Then the Lord saw it, and it displeased HimThat there was no justice.
16. He saw that there was no man,And wondered that there was no intercessor;Therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him;And His own righteousness, it sustained Him.
17. For He put on righteousness as a breastplate,And a helmet of salvation on His head;He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing,And was clad with zeal as a cloak.