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¹ Behold, the hand of Jehovah is not shortened from saving, nor is His ear heavy from hearing.² But your iniquities are coming between you and your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, from hearing.³ For your hands are defiled by blood; yea, your fingers with iniquity. Your lips have spoken falsehood; your tongue murmurs perverseness.⁴ No one calls for righteousness; and no one pleads with truth. Trusting emptiness, and speaking vanity, they conceive mischief, and give birth to iniquity.⁵ 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.⁶ 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.⁷ 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 ways.⁸ 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.

⁹ 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.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 twilight, in deserted places like ones dying.¹¹ We all of us roar like bears, and moaning we moan like doves. We look for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us.¹² For our rebellions are multiplied before You, and our sins testify against us. For our transgressions are with us, and we know our iniquities;¹³ transgressing and lying against Jehovah, and backsliding from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and murmuring words of falsehood from the heart.¹⁴ And justice is driven back; and righteousness stands far off; for truth stumbles in the plaza, and right is not able to enter.¹⁵ 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.

¹⁶ 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.¹⁷ 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.¹⁸ According to works, so He will repay; fury to His foes; recompense to His foes; He will repay recompense to the coasts.¹⁹ So they shall fear Jehovah's name from the west, and His glory from the rising of the sun. When the foe comes like a flood, the Spirit of Jehovah shall cause him to flee.²⁰ And the Redeemer comes to Zion, and to those in Jacob who turn back from their rebellion, declares Jehovah.²¹ As for Me, this is My covenant with them, says Jehovah: My Spirit who is on you, and My Words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of yourseed, or out of the mouth of your seed'sseed, from now on and forever, says Jehovah.