Isaiah 59
59
Separated from God
1Behold, the Lord’s hand is not #Num. 11:23; Is. 50:2; Jer. 32:17shortened,
That it cannot save;
Nor His ear heavy,
That it cannot hear.
2But your iniquities have separated you from your God;
And your sins have hidden His face from you,
So that He will #Is. 1:15not hear.
3For #Is. 1:15, 21; Jer. 2:30, 34; Ezek. 7:23; Hos. 4:2your hands are defiled with blood,
And your fingers with iniquity;
Your lips have spoken lies,
Your tongue has muttered perversity.
4No one calls for justice,
Nor does any plead for truth.
They trust in #Is. 30:12; Jer. 7:4empty words and speak lies;
#Job 15:35; Ps. 7:14; Is. 33:11They conceive evil and bring forth iniquity.
5They hatch vipers’ eggs and weave the spider’s web;
He who eats of their eggs dies,
And from that which is crushed a viper breaks out.
6#Job 8:14Their webs will not become garments,
Nor will they cover themselves with their works;
Their works are works of iniquity,
And the act of violence is in their hands.
7#Prov. 1:16; Rom. 3:15Their feet run to evil,
And they make haste to shed #Prov. 6:17innocent blood;
#Is. 55:7Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity;
Wasting and #Rom. 3:16, 17destruction are in their paths.
8The way of #Is. 57:20, 21peace they have not known,
And there is no justice in their ways;
#Ps. 125:5; Prov. 2:15They have made themselves crooked paths;
Whoever takes that way shall not know peace.
Sin Confessed
9Therefore justice is far from us,
Nor does righteousness overtake us;
#Jer. 8:15We look for light, but there is darkness!
For brightness, but we walk in blackness!
10#Deut. 28:29; Job 5:14; Amos 8:9We grope for the wall like the blind,
And we grope as if we had no eyes;
We stumble at noonday as at twilight;
We are as dead men in desolate places.
11We all growl like bears,
And #Is. 38:14; Ezek. 7:16moan sadly like doves;
We look for justice, but there is none;
For salvation, but it is far from us.
12For our #Is. 24:5; 58:1transgressions are multiplied before You,
And our sins testify against us;
For our transgressions are with us,
And as for our iniquities, we know them:
13In transgressing and lying against the Lord,
And departing from our God,
Speaking oppression and revolt,
Conceiving and uttering #Matt. 12:34from the heart words of falsehood.
14Justice is turned back,
And righteousness stands afar off;
For truth is fallen in the street,
And equity cannot enter.
15So truth fails,
And he who departs from evil makes himself a #Is. 5:23; 10:2; 29:21; 32:7prey.
The Redeemer of Zion
Then the Lord saw it, and it displeased Him
That there was no justice.
16#Is. 41:28; 63:5; 64:7; Ezek. 22:30He saw that there was no man,
And #Mark 6:6wondered that there was no intercessor;
#Ps. 98:1; Is. 63:5Therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him;
And His own righteousness, it sustained Him.
17#Eph. 6:14, 17; 1 Thess. 5:8For He put on righteousness as a breastplate,
And a helmet of salvation on His head;
He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing,
And was clad with zeal as a cloak.
18#Is. 63:6; Rom. 2:6According to their deeds, accordingly He will repay,
Fury to His adversaries,
Recompense to His enemies;
The coastlands He will fully repay.
19#Ps. 113:3; Mal. 1:11So shall they fear
The name of the Lord from the west,
And His glory from the rising of the sun;
When the enemy comes in #Rev. 12:15like a flood,
The Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.
20“The#Rom. 11:26 Redeemer will come to Zion,
And to those who turn from transgression in Jacob,”
Says the Lord.
21“As#(Heb. 8:10; 10:16) for Me,” says the Lord, “this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants’ descendants,” says the Lord, “from this time and forevermore.”
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Isaiah 59: NKJV
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The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Copyright © 1982 Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved.
Isaiah 59
59
The Evil That People Do
1Surely the Lord’s power is enough to save you.
He can hear you when you ask him for help.
2It is your evil that has separated
you from your God.
Your sins cause him to turn away from you.
And then he does not hear you.
3With your hands you have killed others.
Your fingers are covered with blood from killing people.
With your lips you have lied.
With your tongue you say evil things.
4People take each other to court unfairly.
No one tells the truth in arguing his case.
They accuse each other falsely and tell lies.
They cause trouble and create more evil.
5They hatch evil like eggs from poisonous snakes.
If you eat one of those eggs, you will die.
And if you break one open, a poisonous snake comes out.
People tell lies as they would spin a spider’s web.
6The webs they make cannot be used for clothes.
You can’t cover yourself with those webs.
The things they do are evil.
They use their hands to hurt others.
7They eagerly run to do evil.
They are always ready to kill innocent people.
They think evil thoughts.
Everywhere they go they cause ruin and destruction.
8They don’t know how to live in peace.
There is no fairness in their lives.
They are dishonest.
Anyone who lives as they live will never have peace.
Israel’s Sin Brings Trouble
9Fairness has gone far away.
Goodness is nowhere to be found.
We wait for the light, but there is only darkness now.
We hope for a bright light, but all we have is darkness.
10We are like blind people feeling our way along a wall.
We have to feel our way as if we had no eyes.
In the brightness of day we trip as if it were night.
We are like dead men among the strong.
11All of us growl like the bears.
We call out sadly like the doves.
We look for justice, but there isn’t any.
We want to be saved, but salvation is far away.
12We have done many wrong things against our God.
Our sins show we are wrong.
We know we have turned against God.
We know the evil things we have done.
13We have sinned and turned against the Lord.
We have turned away from our God.
We have planned to hurt others and to disobey God.
We have planned and spoken lies.
14We have driven away justice.
We have kept away from what is right.
Truth is not spoken in the streets.
What is honest is not allowed to enter the city.
15Truth cannot be found anywhere.
And people who refuse to do evil are attacked.
The Lord looked and could not find any justice.
And he was displeased.
16He could not find anyone to help the people.
He was surprised that there was no one to help.
So the Lord used his own power to save the people.
His own goodness gave him strength.
17The Lord covered himself with goodness like armor.
He put on the helmet of salvation.
He put on the clothes of punishment.
And he put on the coat of his strong love.
18The Lord will pay back his enemies for what they have done.
He will show his anger to those who were against him.
He will punish the people in faraway places.
He will give them the punishment they should have.
19Then people from the west will fear the Lord.
People in the east will fear his glory.
The Lord will come quickly like a fast-flowing river,
driven by the breath of the Lord.
20“Then a close relative who will save you will come to Jerusalem.
He will come to the people of Jacob who sinned but turned back to God,”
says the Lord.
21The Lord says, “I will make an agreement with these people. I promise that my Spirit and my words that I give you will never leave you. They will be with your children and your grandchildren. They will be with you now and forever.”
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Copyright © 2015 by Tommy Nelson™, a Division of Thomas Nelson, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.