Isaiah 59:3-15

LEB(i) 3 For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity. Your lips have spoken lies, your tongue speaks wickedness. 4 There is nobody who pleads with* justice, and there is nobody who judges with honesty. They rely on nothing and speak vanity. They conceive trouble and beget iniquity; 5 they hatch viper eggs, and they weave a spider web. One who eats their eggs dies, and that which is pressed is hatched as a serpent. 6 Their webs cannot become clothing, and they cannot cover themselves with their works. Their works are works of iniquity, and deeds* of violence are in their hands. 7 Their feet run to evil, and they hasten to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; devastation and destruction are in their highways. 8 They do not know the way of peace, and there is no justice in their firm paths. They have made their paths crooked for themselves; everyone who walks* in it knows no peace. 9 Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We wait for light, but* look! there is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in darkness. 10 We grope like the blind along a wall, and we grope as without* eyes. We stumble at noon as in the twilight; among the strong we are like the dead. 11 We all groan like bears, and we coo mutteringly like doves. We wait for justice, but* there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us. 12 For our transgressions are numerous before you, and our sins testify* against us. Indeed, our transgressions are with us, and we know our iniquities: 13 transgressing and denying Yahweh, and turning away from following* our God; speaking oppression and falsehood, conceiving and uttering words of deception from the heart. 14 And justice is pushed back, and righteousness stands afar; for truth stumbles in the public square, and straightforwardness is unable to enter, 15 and truth is missing, and he who turns aside from evil is plundered. And Yahweh saw, and it was displeasing in his eyes that there was no justice