Their webs cannot serve as clothing; they cannot cover themselves with what they make. Their works are works of iniquity, and deeds of violence are in their hands.

Their feet run to evil, and they rush to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity, desolation and destruction are in their highways.

The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths. Their roads they have made crooked; no one who walks in them knows peace.

Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us; we wait for light, and lo! there is darkness; and for brightness, but we walk in gloom.

We grope like the blind along a wall, groping like those who have no eyes; we stumble at noon as in the twilight, among the vigorous as though we were dead.

We all growl like bears; like doves we moan mournfully. We wait for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us.

For our transgressions before you are many, and our sins testify against us. Our transgressions indeed are with us, and we know our iniquities:

transgressing, and denying the Lord , and turning away from following our God, talking oppression and revolt, conceiving lying words and uttering them from the heart.

Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands at a distance; for truth stumbles in the public square, and uprightness cannot enter.

Truth is lacking, and whoever turns from evil is despoiled. The Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice.

He saw that there was no one, and was appalled that there was no one to intervene; so his own arm brought him victory, and his righteousness upheld him.

He put on righteousness like a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head; he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped himself in fury as in a mantle.

According to their deeds, so will he repay; wrath to his adversaries, requital to his enemies; to the coastlands he will render requital.

So those in the west shall fear the name of the Lord , and those in the east, his glory; for he will come like a pent-up stream that the wind of the Lord drives on.

And he will come to Zion as Redeemer, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression, says the Lord.

And as for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord : my spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouths of your children, or out of the mouths of your children's children, says the Lord , from now on and forever.

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence—

as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil— to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence!

When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.

From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him.

You meet those who gladly do right, those who remember you in your ways. But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed.

We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.

Yet, O Lord , you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.

Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord , and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.

Your holy cities have become a wilderness, Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.

Our holy and beautiful house, where our ancestors praised you, has been burned by fire, and all our pleasant places have become ruins.

After all this, will you restrain yourself, O Lord ? Will you keep silent, and punish us so severely?