Isaiah 59
59
Social Injustice Is Condemned
1The Lord hasn't lost
his powerful strength;
he can still hear
and answer prayers.
2Your sins are the roadblock
between you and your God.
That's why he doesn't answer
your prayers
or let you see his face.
3Your talk is filled with lies
and plans for violence;
every finger on your hands
is covered with blood.
4You falsely accuse others
and tell lies in court;
sin and trouble are the names
of your children.
5You eat the deadly eggs
of poisonous snakes,
and more snakes crawl out
from the eggs left to hatch.
You weave spider webs,
6but you can't make clothes
with those webs
or hide behind them.
You're sinful and brutal.
7 #
Ro 3.15-17. You hurry off to do wrong
or murder innocent victims.
All you think about is sin;
you leave ruin and destruction
wherever you go.
8You don't know how
to live in peace
or to be fair with others.
The roads you make are crooked;
your followers cannot find peace.
The People Confess Their Sins
9No one has come to defend us
or to bring about justice.
We hoped for a day of sunshine,
but all we found
was a dark, gloomy night.
10We feel our way along,
as if we were blind;
we stumble at noon,
as if it were night.
We can see no better
than someone dead.#59.10 We can … dead: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.
11We growl like bears
and mourn like doves.
We hope for justice and victory,
but they escape us.
12How often have we sinned
and turned against you,
the Lord God?
Our sins condemn us!
We have done wrong.
13We have rebelled and refused
to follow you.
Our hearts were deceitful,
and so we lied;
we planned to abuse others
and turn our backs on you.
14Injustice is everywhere;
justice seems far away.
Truth is chased out of court;
honesty is shoved aside.
15Everyone tells lies;
those who turn from crime
end up ruined.
The Lord Will Rescue His People
When the Lord noticed
that justice had disappeared,
he became very displeased.
16 #
Is 63.5. It disgusted him even more
to learn that no one
would do a thing about it.
So with his own powerful arm,
he won victories for truth.
17 #
Ws 5.17-23; Eph 6.14,17; 1 Th 5.8. Justice was the Lord's armor;
saving power was his helmet;
anger and revenge
were his clothes.
18Now the Lord will get furious
and do to his enemies,
both near and far,
what they did to his people.
19He will attack like a flood
in a mighty windstorm.
Nations in the west and the east
will then honor and praise
his wonderful name.
20 #
Ro 11.26. The Lord has promised to rescue
the city of Zion
and Jacob's descendants
who turn from sin.
21The Lord says: “My people,
I promise to give you my Spirit
and my message.
These will be my gifts to you
and your families forever.
I, the Lord, have spoken.”
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Isaiah 59: CEV
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Contemporary English Version, Second Edition (CEV®)
© 2006 American Bible Society. All rights reserved.
Yeshayah (Isaiah) 59
59
1Look, the hand of יהוה has not become too short to save, nor His ear too heavy to hear.
2But your crookednesses have separated you from your Elohim. And your sins have hidden His face from you, from hearing.
3For your hands have been defiled with blood, and your fingers with crookedness; your lips have spoken falsehood, your tongue mutters unrighteousness.
4No one calls for righteousness, and no one pleads for truth. They trust in emptiness and speak worthlessness; they conceive trouble and bring forth wickedness.
5They have hatched adders’ eggs and they weave the spider’s web. Whoever eats their eggs dies, and when one is broken an adder is hatched.
6Their webs do not become garments, nor do they cover themselves with their works. Their works are works of wickedness, and a deed of violence is in their hands.
7Their feet run to evil, and they hurry to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of wickedness, wasting and ruin are in their highways.
8The way of peace they have not known, and there is no right-ruling in their ways. They have made crooked paths for themselves, whoever treads in them shall not know peace.
9Therefore right-ruling has been far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We look for light, but there is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in thick darkness!
10We feel for the wall like the blind, and we feel as without eyes. At noon we stumble as at twilight, in deserted places, like the dead.
11All of us growl like bears, and moan sadly like doves. We look for right-ruling, but there is none; for deliverance, but it is far from us.
12For our transgressions have increased before You, and our sins witnessed against us. For our transgressions are with us, and as for our crookednesses, we know them:
13transgressing, and being untrue to יהוה, and turning away from our Elohim, speaking oppression and apostasy, conceiving and pondering words of falsehood from the heart.
14And right-ruling is driven back, and righteousness stands far off. For truth has fallen in the street, and right is unable to enter.#See Amos 5:7
15And the truth is lacking, and whoever turns away from evil makes himself a prey. And יהוה saw, and it displeased Him that there was no right-ruling.
16And He saw that there was no man, and was astonished that there was no intercessor. So His own arm saved for Him, and His righteousness upheld him.
17And He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of deliverance on His head. And He put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped Himself with ardour as a mantle.
18According to their deeds, so He repays, wrath to His adversaries, recompense to His enemies. He repays recompense to the coastlands.
19And they shall fear the Name of יהוה from the west, and His esteem from the rising of the sun, when distress comes like a flood, the Spirit of יהוה drives at#Lit. “in” it. it.
20“And the Redeemer shall come to Tsiyon,#See footnote at Isa. 24:23 and to those turning from transgression in Ya‛aqoḇ,” declares יהוה.
21“As for Me, this is My covenant with them,” said יהוה: “My Spirit that is upon you, and My Words that I have put in your mouth, shall not be withdrawn from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants’ descendants,” said יהוה, “from this time and forever.”
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