| New King James Version | New Living Translation |
| 1Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, That it cannot save; Nor His ear heavy, That it cannot hear. | 1Listen! The LORD’s arm is not too weak to save you, nor is his ear too deaf to hear you call. |
| 2But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear. | 2It’s your sins that have cut you off from God. Because of your sins, he has turned away and will not listen anymore. |
| 3For your hands are defiled with blood, And your fingers with iniquity; Your lips have spoken lies, Your tongue has muttered perversity. | 3Your hands are the hands of murderers, and your fingers are filthy with sin. Your lips are full of lies, and your mouth spews corruption. |
| 4No one calls for justice, Nor does any plead for truth. They trust in empty words and speak lies; They conceive evil and bring forth iniquity. | 4No one cares about being fair and honest. The people’s lawsuits are based on lies. They conceive evil deeds and then give birth to sin. |
| 5They hatch vipers’ eggs and weave the spider’s web; He who eats of their eggs dies, And from that which is crushed a viper breaks out. | 5They hatch deadly snakes and weave spiders’ webs. Whoever eats their eggs will die; whoever cracks them will hatch a viper. |
| 6Their webs will not become garments, Nor will they cover themselves with their works; Their works are works of iniquity, And the act of violence is in their hands. | 6Their webs can’t be made into clothing, and nothing they do is productive. All their activity is filled with sin, and violence is their trademark. |
| 7Their feet run to evil, And they make haste to shed innocent blood; Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; Wasting and destruction are in their paths. | 7Their feet run to do evil, and they rush to commit murder. They think only about sinning. Misery and destruction always follow them. |
| 8The way of peace they have not known, And there is no justice in their ways; They have made themselves crooked paths; Whoever takes that way shall not know peace. | 8They don’t know where to find peace or what it means to be just and good. They have mapped out crooked roads, and no one who follows them knows a moment’s peace. |
| 9Therefore justice is far from us, Nor does righteousness overtake us; We look for light, but there is darkness! For brightness, but we walk in blackness! | 9So there is no justice among us, and we know nothing about right living. We look for light but find only darkness. We look for bright skies but walk in gloom. |
| 10We grope for the wall like the blind, And we grope as if we had no eyes; We stumble at noonday as at twilight; We are as dead men in desolate places. | 10We grope like the blind along a wall, feeling our way like people without eyes. Even at brightest noontime, we stumble as though it were dark. Among the living, we are like the dead. |
| 11We all growl like bears, And moan sadly like doves; We look for justice, but there is none; For salvation, but it is far from us. | 11We growl like hungry bears; we moan like mournful doves. We look for justice, but it never comes. We look for rescue, but it is far away from us. |
| 12For our transgressions are multiplied before You, And our sins testify against us; For our transgressions are with us, And as for our iniquities, we know them: | 12For our sins are piled up before God and testify against us. Yes, we know what sinners we are. |
| 13In transgressing and lying against the LORD, And departing from our God, Speaking oppression and revolt, Conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood. | 13We know we have rebelled and have denied the LORD. We have turned our backs on our God. We know how unfair and oppressive we have been, carefully planning our deceitful lies. |
| 14Justice is turned back, And righteousness stands afar off; For truth is fallen in the street, And equity cannot enter. | 14Our courts oppose the righteous, and justice is nowhere to be found. Truth stumbles in the streets, and honesty has been outlawed. |
| 15So truth fails, And he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. Then the LORD saw it, and it displeased Him That there was no justice. | 15Yes, truth is gone, and anyone who renounces evil is attacked. The LORD looked and was displeased to find there was no justice. |
| 16He saw that there was no man, And wondered that there was no intercessor; Therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him; And His own righteousness, it sustained Him. | 16He was amazed to see that no one intervened to help the oppressed. So he himself stepped in to save them with his strong arm, and his justice sustained him. |
| 17For He put on righteousness as a breastplate, And a helmet of salvation on His head; He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, And was clad with zeal as a cloak. | 17He put on righteousness as his body armor and placed the helmet of salvation on his head. He clothed himself with a robe of vengeance and wrapped himself in a cloak of divine passion. |
| 18According to their deeds, accordingly He will repay, Fury to His adversaries, Recompense to His enemies; The coastlands He will fully repay. | 18He will repay his enemies for their evil deeds. His fury will fall on his foes. He will pay them back even to the ends of the earth. |
| 19So shall they fear The name of the LORD from the west, And His glory from the rising of the sun; When the enemy comes in like a flood, The Spirit of the LORD will lift up a standard against him. | 19In the west, people will respect the name of the LORD; in the east, they will glorify him. For he will come like a raging flood tide driven by the breath of the LORD. |
| 20“The Redeemer will come to Zion, And to those who turn from transgression in Jacob,” Says the LORD. | 20“The Redeemer will come to Jerusalem to buy back those in Israel who have turned from their sins,” says the LORD. |
| 21“As for Me,” says the LORD, “this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants’ descendants,” says the LORD, “from this time and forevermore.” | 21“And this is my covenant with them,” says the LORD. “My Spirit will not leave them, and neither will these words I have given you. They will be on your lips and on the lips of your children and your children’s children forever. I, the LORD, have spoken! |
| The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Copyright © 1982 Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved. | Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. |
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