4No one brings a lawsuit fairly, and no one goes to law honestly; they have relied on empty arguments and they tell lies; they conceive trouble and give birth to iniquity.
6Their cobwebs cannot become clothing, they cannot cover themselves with what they make. Their deeds are deeds of iniquity, and acts of violence fill their hands.
7Their feet rush to evil, and they are quick to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; ruin, destruction, and violence are in their paths.
8The pathway of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their courses. They have made their roads crooked; no one who walks in them will know peace."
9"So justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We wait for light, but look—there is darkness; we wait for brightness, but we walk in deep darkness.
10Let's grope along the wall like the blind; let us grope like those who have no eyes. We stumble at midday as if it were twilight, in desolate places like dead people.
12"For our transgressions before you are many, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and as for our iniquities, we acknowledge them:
13they've rebelled in treachery against the LORD, and are turning away from following our God; and they've spoken oppression and revolt, and are conceiving lying words from the heart.
16He 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 righteous acts upheld him.
17He 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 like a cloak.
19So people will fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glories from the rising of the sun; for he will come as a pent-up stream that the breath of the LORD drives along.
21"As for me, this is my covenant with them," says the LORD. "And my Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, won't depart from your mouth, or from the mouths of your children, or from the mouths of your children's children, from now on and forever."