1 See, the LORD's hand is not too short to save, nor his ear too heavy to hear;
2 it is your iniquities that have driven a wedge between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not listen.
3 For your hands are stained with blood and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue murmurs injustice.
4 No one sues in righteousness, no one goes to court honestly. They rely on empty words and speak what is worthless; they conceive mischief and give birth to wickedness.
5 They hatch adders' eggs and weave spiders' webs; whoever eats their eggs dies, and when one is cracked, a snake hatches out.
6 Their webs will not make clothing; they cannot wrap themselves in what they produce. Their works are works of wickedness, and violent deeds are in their hands.
7 Their feet run toward evil, and they rush to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are wicked thoughts, ruin and destruction lie along their highways.
8 They do not know the way of peace, and there is no justice in their tracks; they have twisted their paths, and no one who treads them knows peace.
9 That is why justice is far from us and righteousness does not reach us; we long for light, but see, there is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in deep gloom.
10 Like the blind we feel our way along the wall, we feel our way like people without eyes; we stumble at midday as if it were dusk; among the robust we are like the dead.
11 We all growl like bears and moan and moan like doves; we long for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us.
12 For our transgressions are many in your sight, and our sins testify against us; our transgressions are with us, and we know our iniquities:
13 rebelling and denying the LORD, turning our backs on our God, talking oppression and revolt, conceiving lying words and muttering them from the heart.
14 Justice is driven back, and righteousness stands far away; for truth has stumbled in the town square, and honesty cannot get in.
15 Truth has gone missing, and whoever turns from evil is plundered. The LORD saw it, and it was evil in his sight that there was no justice.
16 He saw that there was no one, and was appalled that there was no one to step in; so his own arm won the victory for him, and his own righteousness held him up.
17 He put on righteousness like a coat of armor and the helmet of salvation on his head; he put on garments of vengeance as his clothing and wrapped himself in zeal like a cloak.
18 As their deeds deserve, so he will repay: fury to his foes, retribution to his enemies; to the coastlands he will pay back retribution.
19 From the west they will fear the name of the LORD, and from the sunrise his glory; for he will come like a narrow, rushing river that the Spirit of the LORD drives along.
20 "A Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn back from transgression," declares the LORD.
21 "And as for me, this is my covenant with them," says the LORD: "My Spirit, who is on you, and my words, which I have put in your mouth, will not leave your mouth, or the mouths of your offspring, or the mouths of their offspring," says the LORD, "from now on and forever."