The sinful people and the devine deliverance

The sins

59 Behold, the hands of the Lord

is not too short to save,

nor his ear too dull to hear.

2 Your iniquities are the barrier

between your God and you;

your sins have hidden his face,

and therefore he will not hear you.

3 For your hands are stained with blood,

and your fingers with iniquity;

your lips have uttered falsehood,

your tongue mutters depravity.

4 No one sues the integrity,

no one with honesty pleads;

they trust in pretence and lies,

conceive trouble and bring forth mischief.

5 Basilisks’ eggs they hatch,

and spiders’ webs they weave:

who eats their eggs will die,

and the egg that is crushed breaks out as a viper.

6 Their webs cannot serve as a garment,

with that which they fabricate no man can clothe himself;

for evil is what they fabricate,

their hands work deeds of violence.

7 Their feet run to evil,

they haste to shed innocent blood;

their thoughts are thoughts of mischief,

their paths are wreck and ruin.

8 The ways of peace they know not,

no justice is in their tracks:

for their own selfish ends they have twisted their paths;

who treads thereon is a stranger to peace.

The confession

9 For this cause our right remains far,

and no victory yet overtakes us;

we look for the light, but lo! Darkness –

for brightness, but walk in the gloom.

10 We grope, like the blind, by the wall,

yea, like men who are sightless we grope;

we stumble at noon as in twilight,

in darkness we dwell like the dead.

11 We all of us roar like bears,

like doves we sadly mourn;

we look – but in vain – for justice,

salvation is far away.

12 Our transgressions before you are many,

our sins do witness against us,

our transgressions are ever with us,

we know our iniquities well –

13 rebellion, denial of the Lord,

and turning away from our God,

speaking revolt and perverseness,

and uttering lies from the heart.

14 Justice is driven back,

and righteousness stands afar;

in the market-place truth stumbles,

and rectitude cannot enter.

15 So truth is not to be found,

and insight departs from the city.

At the sight was the Lord displeased,

he was angry that justice was lacking.

The deliverance

16 He saw with utter amaze

not a man to interpose;

so his own arm wrought him deliverance,

his righteous might upheld him.

17 He put on the breastplate of righteousness,

on his head the helm of salvation;

he put on the garments of vengeance,

in the mantle of passion he clothed him.

18 He renders recompense matching desert –

wrath to his enemies, shame to his foes:

19 so will those in the west fear the name of the Lord,

and those at the sunrise behold his glory.

He will come like a pent-up stream,

which the breath of the Lord drives.

20 But to Zion he comes as redeemer,

and removes transgressors from Jacob.

21 This covenant with them I make, says the Lord –

my spirit that is upon you,

and the words I have put in your mouth –

will not depart form your mouth,

nor from the mouth of your children,

nor yet from the mouth of your children’s children,

says the Lord, from the henceforth and evermore.