Evil and Oppression (ISA 59:1-13)

[59:1] Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear;

[59:2] but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.

[59:3] For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies; your tongue mutters wickedness.

[59:4] No one enters suit justly; no one goes to law honestly; they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies, they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity.

[59:5] They 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.

[59:6] 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.

[59:7] 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.

[59:8] The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths; they have made their roads crooked; no one who treads on them knows peace.

[59:9] Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not overtake us; we hope for light, and behold, darkness, and for brightness, but we walk in gloom.

[59:10] We grope for the wall like the blind; we grope like those who have no eyes; we stumble at noon as in the twilight, among those in full vigor we are like dead men.

[59:11] We all growl like bears; we moan and moan like doves; we hope for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us.

[59:12] For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and we know our iniquities:

[59:13] transgressing, and denying the Lord, and turning back from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart lying words.