Isaiah 59 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

Look — Yahweh's hand is not too short to rescue, his ear is not too dull to hear.

No — it's your failures that have built a wall between you and your God. Your corruptions have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.

Your hands are smeared with blood, your fingers with corruption. Your lips speak lies, your tongue mutters crooked things.

No one argues a case with justice, no one pleads honestly. They trust in emptiness, they speak worthlessness; they conceive trouble and give birth to disaster.

They hatch viper eggs and weave spider webs. Whoever eats their eggs dies; crack one open — a venomous snake slithers out.

Their webs can never become clothing; no one can cover themselves with what they make. Their works are works of disaster, and the grip of violence is in their hands.

Their feet run toward evil, they rush to spill innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of disaster; ruin and destruction mark their roads.

The road of peace — they don't know it. There is no justice in their paths. They have twisted their roads for themselves; no one who walks them knows peace.

So justice stays far from us and what's right never reaches us. We look for light but find only darkness, for brightness but walk in deep shadow.

We grope along the wall like the blind, stumbling like people without eyes. We trip at midday as if it were twilight; among the strong, we are like the dead.

We all growl like bears, we moan and moan like doves. We look for justice — nothing. For rescue — it stays far away.

Our rebellions have piled up before you, our failures testify against us. Our rebellions are always with us — we know our corruptions all too well.

Rebelling and denying Yahweh, turning away from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and whispering lies from the heart.

Justice is driven back, and what's right stands far off. Truth stumbles in the public square, and honesty cannot even enter.

Truth is nowhere to be found, and anyone who turns from evil makes themselves a target. Yahweh saw it — and it was wrong in his eyes that there was no justice.

He looked — and there was no one. He was appalled that no one would step in. So his own arm brought rescue for him, and his own justice held him up.

He put on justice as his armor, rescue as a helmet on his head. He dressed in vengeance as his clothing and wrapped himself in fierce passion like a cloak.

According to what they've done, he will repay — fury to his enemies, payback to his foes, full payback to the distant coastlands.

From the west they will fear the name of Yahweh, and from the rising sun, his glory — for he will come like a rushing river driven hard by the breath of Yahweh.

"A redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from rebellion," declares Yahweh.

"And as for me — this is my covenant with them," says Yahweh. "My breath that is on you, and my words that I have put in your mouth — they will not leave your mouth, or the mouth of your children, or the mouth of your children's children," says Yahweh, "from now until forever."