Isaiah Chapter 59

Warnings Against Sin

                        ¹ It’s not that Yahveh’s hand is not too weak to save

                                    or his ear too deaf to hear you call.

                        ² It’s your iniquities that have separated you from him;

                              your sins have shut him off from you,

                                    so he ignores you.

                        ³ You’ve defiled your hands with blood,

                              your fingers with sin,

                              your lips with lying,

                              your tongues with gossip.

                        ⁴ None of you brings just suits or argues cases honestly;

                              you hide behind double talk and perjury;

                              you conceive schemes and give birth to sin.                   

Is 59:1-4

                        ⁵ You hatch viper eggs and weave spider webs;

                              whoever eats the eggs dies;

                              snakes hatch from the cracked eggs.

                        ⁶ Your webs can’t become clothes;

                              you can’t dress yourselves with what you’ve made.

                        Your deeds are sinful;

                              you use your hands for violence.

                        ⁷ You hurry to do harm,

                                    run to shed blood,

                                    and think sinful things;

                              destruction lies scattered along your highways.

                        ⁸ You don’t know any road that leads to peace;

                              you give the wrong directions;

                              whoever follows them gets lost.                                      

Is 59:5-8

                        ⁹ So justice is a long way off from you;

                                    right living doesn’t help you.

                              You hope for light, but it’s dark here;

                                    you look for sunny days but live in gloom.

                        ¹⁰ You grope along the wall like the blind

                                    and fumble around like people without eyes;

                              you stumble around as much at noon as you do at dusk,

                                    like the dead among the living.

                        ¹¹ You growl like bears and moan like pigeons;

                              you look for justice, but it doesn’t come;

                                    you want salvation, but it’s a distant prospect.         

Is 59:9-11

                        ¹² You’ve multiplied your sins right in God’s face;

                              they testify against you.

                              You know you’re sinful;

                                    ¹³ you transgress and deny Yahveh

                                          and turn your backs on him.

                              You advocate oppression and rebellion,

                                    conceive and tell lies from the heart.

                        ¹⁴ The courts oppose justice;

                                    it’s nowhere near;

                              truth stumbles in the streets;

                                    honesty is illegal.

                              ^15aThere is no truth;

                                    those who turn from sin become victims.

Is 59:12-15a

                        ^15b-16Yahveh was amazed;

                              it displeased him that there was no justice.

                         Nobody was intervening to help the oppressed;

                              so he brought about salvation himself

                                    and sustained it with his goodness.

                        ¹⁷ He put on goodness like a breastplate,

                                    and a helmet of salvation on his head;

                              he dressed himself in vengeance

                                    and wrapped himself with zeal like a mantle.

                        ¹⁸ He’ll repay his adversaries according to their deeds,

                              recompense his enemies with his anger,

                              and carry out retribution to the ends of the earth.

                        ¹⁹ So they’ll fear Yahveh in the west

                                    and honor him from the rising of the sun,

                              because he’ll come like a rushing tide

                                    that he drives with the wind.

                        ²⁰ “A redeemer will come to Zion,

                              to those who turn from sin in Jacob,” Yahveh says.   

Is 59:15b-20

                                    ²¹“This is my covenant with you:

                                             my Spirit that’s on you,

                              my message that’s in you

                                    won’t leave you, your children,

                                    or grandchildren from now on.”                                Is 59:21