Isaiah 58-59

Common English Bible

58 Shout loudly; don’t hold back;
    raise your voice like a trumpet!
Announce to my people their crime,
    to the house of Jacob their sins.
² They seek me day after day,
    desiring knowledge of my ways
    like a nation that acted righteously,
    that didn’t abandon their God.
They ask me for righteous judgments,
    wanting to be close to God.
³ “Why do we fast and you don’t see;
    why afflict ourselves and you don’t notice?”
Yet on your fast day you do whatever you want,
    and oppress all your workers.
⁴ You quarrel and brawl, and then you fast;
    you hit each other violently with your fists.
You shouldn’t fast as you are doing today
    if you want to make your voice heard on high.
⁵ Is this the kind of fast I choose,
    a day of self-affliction,
    of bending one’s head like a reed
    and of lying down in mourning clothing and ashes?
    Is this what you call a fast,
        a day acceptable to the Lord?

    59 Look! The Lord does not lack the power to save,
    nor are his ears too dull to hear,
²     but your misdeeds have separated you from your God.
Your sins have hidden his face from you
    so that you aren’t heard.
³ Your hands are stained with blood,
    and your fingers with guilt.
Your lips speak lies;
    your tongues mutter malice.
⁴ No one sues honestly;
    no one pleads truthfully.
By trusting in emptiness and speaking deceit,
    they conceive harm and give birth to malice.
⁵ They hatch adders’ eggs,
    and weave spiderwebs.
Whoever eats their eggs will die.
    Moreover, the crushed egg hatches a viper.
⁶ Their webs can’t serve as clothing;
    they can’t cover themselves with their deeds.
Their deeds are deeds of malice,
    and the work of violence is in their hands.
⁷ Their feet run to evil;
    they rush to shed innocent blood.
Their thoughts are thoughts of malice;
    desolation and destruction litter their highways.
⁸ They don’t know the way of peace;
    there’s no justice in their paths.
They make their roads crooked;
    no one who walks in them knows peace.

⁹ Because of all this, justice is far from us,
    and righteousness beyond our reach.
We expect light, and there is darkness;
    we await a gleam of light, but walk about in gloom.
¹⁰ We grope along the wall like the blind;
    like those without eyes we grope.
We stumble at noonday as if it were twilight,
    and among the strong as if we were dying.
¹¹ All of us growl like bears,
    and like doves we moan.
We expect justice, but there is none;
    we await salvation, but it is far from us.
¹² Our rebellions are numerous in your presence;
    our sins testify against us.
Our rebellions are with us;
    we’re aware of our guilt:
¹³     defying and denying the Lord,
    turning away from our God,
    planning oppression and revolt,
    muttering lying words conceived in our minds.
¹⁴ Justice is pushed aside;
    righteousness stands far off,
    because truth has stumbled in the public square,
    and honesty can’t enter.
¹⁵ Truth is missing;
    anyone turning from evil is plundered.

The Lord looked and was upset at the absence of justice.
¹⁶ Seeing that there was no one,
    and astonished that no one would intervene,
    God’s arm brought victory,
    upheld by righteousness,
¹⁷     putting on righteousness as armor
    and a helmet of salvation on his head,
    putting on garments of vengeance,
    and wrapping himself in a cloak of zeal.
¹⁸ God will repay according to their actions:
    wrath to his foes, retribution to enemies,
    retribution to the coastlands,
¹⁹     so those in the west will fear the Lord’s name,
    and those in the east will fear God’s glory.
It will come like a rushing river
    that the Lord’s wind drives on.
²⁰ A redeemer will come to Zion
    and to those in Jacob who stop rebelling,
    says the Lord.