Sin’s Consequences

59 Behold, the Lord’s hand is not so short
That it cannot save;
Nor is His ear so dull
That it cannot hear.
² But your wrongdoings have caused a separation between you and your God,
And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.
³ For your hands are defiled with blood,
And your fingers with wrongdoing;
Your lips have spoken deceit,
Your tongue mutters wickedness.
⁴ No one sues righteously and no one pleads honestly.
They trust in confusion and speak lies;
They conceive trouble and give birth to disaster.
⁵ They hatch vipers’ eggs and weave the spider’s web;
The one who eats of their eggs dies,
And from what is crushed, a snake breaks out.
⁶ Their webs will not become clothing,
Nor will they cover themselves with their works;
Their works are works of wrongdoing,
And an act of violence is in their hands.
⁷ Their feet run to evil,
And they hurry to shed innocent blood;
Their thoughts are thoughts of wrongdoing,
Devastation and destruction are in their paths.
⁸ They do not know the way of peace,
And there is no justice in their tracks;
They have made their paths crooked,
Whoever walks on them does not know peace.

⁹ Therefore justice is far from us,
And righteousness does not reach us;
We hope for light, but there is darkness,
For brightness, but we walk in gloom.
¹⁰ We grope for the wall like people who are blind,
We grope like those who have no eyes.
We stumble at midday as in the twilight;
Among those who are healthy we are like the dead.
¹¹ All of us growl like bears,
And moan sadly like doves;
We hope for justice, but there is none;
For salvation, but it is far from us.
¹² For our wrongful acts have multiplied before You,
And our sins have testified against us;
For our wrongful acts are with us,
And we know our wrongdoings:
¹³ Offending and denying the Lord,
And turning away from our God,
Speaking oppression and revolt,
Conceiving and uttering lying words from the heart.
¹⁴ Justice is turned back,
And righteousness stands far away;
For truth has stumbled in the street,
And uprightness cannot enter.
¹⁵ Truth is lacking,
And one who turns aside from evil makes himself a prey.
Now the Lord saw,
And it was displeasing in His sight that there was no justice.
¹⁶ And He saw that there was no one,
And was amazed that there was not one to intercede;
Then His own arm brought salvation to Him,
And His righteousness upheld Him.
¹⁷ He put on righteousness like a breastplate,
And a helmet of salvation on His head;
And He put on garments of vengeance for clothing
And wrapped Himself with zeal as a cloak.
¹⁸ According to their deeds, so will He repay:
Wrath to His adversaries, retribution to His enemies;
To the coastlands He will deal retribution.
¹⁹ So they will fear the name of the Lord from the west
And His glory from the rising of the sun,
For He will come like a rushing stream
Which the wind of the Lord drives.
²⁰ “A Redeemer will come to Zion,
And to those in Jacob who turn from wrongdoing,” declares the Lord.