Isaiah 59:3-13

English Standard Version

³^(A)For your hands are defiled with blood
    and your fingers with iniquity;
your lips have spoken lies;
    your tongue mutters wickedness.
⁴^(B)No one enters suit justly;
    no one goes to law honestly;
they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies,
    ^(C)they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity.
⁵They hatch adders' eggs;
    they weave the spider's web;
he who eats their eggs dies,
    and from one that is crushed a viper is hatched.
⁶^(D)Their webs will not serve as clothing;
    men will not cover themselves with what they make.
Their works are works of iniquity,
    and deeds of violence are in their hands.
⁷^(E)Their feet run to evil,
    and they are swift to shed innocent blood;
their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity;
    desolation and destruction are in their highways.
⁸The way of peace they do not know,
    and there is no justice in their paths;
they have made their roads crooked;
    ^(F)no one who treads on them knows peace.

⁹Therefore justice is far from us,
    and righteousness does not overtake us;
^(G)we hope for light, and behold, darkness,
    and for brightness, but we walk in gloom.
¹⁰^(H)We grope for the wall like the blind;
    we grope like those who have no eyes;
we stumble at noon as in the twilight,
    ^(I)among those in full vigor we are like dead men.
¹¹We all growl like bears;
    ^(J)we moan and moan like doves;
^(K)we hope for justice, but there is none;
    for salvation, but it is far from us.
¹²For our transgressions are multiplied before you,
    and our sins testify against us;
for our transgressions are with us,
    and we know our iniquities:
¹³transgressing, and denying the Lord,
    and turning back from following our God,
^(L)speaking oppression and revolt,
    conceiving and uttering from the heart lying words.