The Book of the Prophet Isaiah

Behold, the hand of Jehovah is not shortened from saving, nor is His ear heavy from hearing.

But your iniquities are coming between you and your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, from hearing.

For your hands are defiled by blood; yea, your fingers with iniquity. Your lips have spoken falsehood; your tongue murmurs perverseness.

No one calls for righteousness; and no one pleads with truth. Trusting emptiness, and speaking vanity, they conceive mischief, and give birth to evil.

They hatch adders' eggs, and weave the spider's web; he who eats their eggs dies; and that which is crushed hatches out a viper.

Their webs shall not become clothing, nor shall they cover themselves with their works. Their works are works of evil, and the act of violence [is] in their hands.

Their feet run to evil, and they hurry to pour out innocent blood. Thoughts of iniquity [are] their thoughts; wasting and ruin are in their tracks.

They do not know the way of peace; and no justice [is] in their tracks. They have made crooked paths for themselves; everyone going in them does not know peace.

For this reason justice is far from us; and righteousness does not overtake us. We wait for light, but, behold, dimness; for brightness, [but] we walk in gloom.

We grope [for] the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we [had] no eyes; we stumble at noonday as in the twilight, in deserted places like the dead.

We all of us roar like bears, and we moan sadly like doves. We look for justice, but [there is] none; for salvation, but it is far from us.

For our trespasses [are] multiplied before You, and our sins testify against us. For our transgressions are with us, and we know our iniquities;

transgressing and lying against Jehovah, and departing from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and murmuring words of falsehood from the heart.

And justice is driven back; and righteousness stands far off; for truth stumbles in the plaza, and right is not able to enter.

And the truth is lacking; and whoever turns from evil makes himself a prey. And Jehovah saw; and it was evil in His eyes, that [there was] no justice.

And He saw that [there was] no man, and He was astonished that [there was] no intercessor. And His own arm saved for Him; and His righteousness sustained Him.

For He put on righteousness like armor, and a helmet of salvation on His head. And He put on robes of vengeance [as] clothing; and He put on zeal like a mantle.