 1 Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened so that it cannot save, nor is His ear heavy so that it cannot hear. 2 But your iniquities have come between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, from hearing. 3 For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity. Your lips have spoken lies, your tongue has muttered perverseness. 4 None calls for justice, nor does anyone plead for truth. They trust in vanity and speak lies. They conceive mischief and bring out iniquity. 5 They hatch adders' eggs and weave the spider's web. One who eats their eggs dies. What is crushed breaks out into a viper. 6 Their webs shall not become clothing, nor shall 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 hurry+ to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity. Wasting and ruin are in their paths. 8 They did not know the way of peace, and there is no judgment in their paths. They have made crooked paths for themselves. Whoever goes in them shall not know peace. 9 Therefore judgment is far from us. Nor does justice overtake us. We wait for light, but behold, dimness. For brightness, but we walk in darkness. 10 We grope for the wall like the blind and we grope as if we had no eyes. We stumble at noonday as in the night. We are in deserted places like dead men. 11 We all roar like bears and mourn grievously like doves. We look for judgment but find none, for salvation but it is far off from us. 12 For our transgressions are multiplied before you. Our sins testify against us. Our transgressions are with us. We know our iniquities. 13 We have transgressed and lied against the Lord and gone away from our God, talking cruelty and revolt, conceiving and speaking from the heart words of falsehood. 14 Justice is driven back and justice stands far off. Truth has fallen in the street and right cannot enter. 15 Yes, truth fails. Those who depart from evil make themselves a prey. The Lord saw and it displeased Him that there was no judgment. 16 He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor. Therefore His own arm brought salvation to Him. And His righteousness sustained Him. 17 For He put on righteousness like a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on His head. And He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was covered with zeal like a cloak. 18 According to their deeds, accordingly He will repay. Fury to His foes, deed for deed to His enemies. He will repay their deeds to the coastlands. 19 So they shall fear the name of the Lord from the west, and His glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall make him flee. 20 The redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob, says the Lord. 21 As for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord. My spirit is on you and I have put my words in your mouth and they will not depart out of your mouth nor out of the mouth of your descendants nor out of the mouth of your descendants's descendants, says the Lord, from now on and forever.
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