59:3 For your hands are stained with blood
and your fingers with sin;
your lips speak lies,
your tongue utters malicious words.
59:4 No one is concerned about justice; 1
no one sets forth his case truthfully.
They depend on false words 2 and tell lies;
they conceive of oppression 3
and give birth to sin.
59:5 They hatch the eggs of a poisonous snake
and spin a spider’s web.
Whoever eats their eggs will die,
a poisonous snake is hatched. 4
59:13 We have rebelled and tried to deceive the Lord;
we turned back from following our God.
We stir up 5 oppression and rebellion;
we tell lies we concocted in our minds. 6
59:14 Justice is driven back;
godliness 7 stands far off.
Indeed, 8 honesty stumbles in the city square
and morality is not even able to enter.
59:15 Honesty has disappeared;
the one who tries to avoid evil is robbed.
The Lord watches and is displeased, 9
for there is no justice.
1 tn Heb “no one pleads with justice.”
2 tn Heb “nothing”; NAB “emptiness.”
3 tn Or “trouble” (NIV), or “harm.”
4 tn Heb “that which is pressed in hatches [as] a snake.”
5 tn Heb “speaking.” A new sentence was started here in the translation for stylistic reasons.
6 tn Heb “conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.”
7 tn Or “righteousness” (ASV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); KJV, NAB “justice.”
8 tn Or “for” (KJV, NRSV).
9 tn Heb “and it is displeasing in his eyes.”