Page:JPS-1917-Universal.djvu/572

---

And I will make thee to ride upon the high places of the earth,

And I will feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father;

For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

 

59Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save,

Neither His ear heavy, that it cannot hear;

²But your iniquities have separated

Between you and your God,

And your sins have hid His face from you,

That He will not hear.

³For your hands are defiled with blood,

And your fingers with iniquity;

Your lips have spoken lies,

Your tongue muttereth wickedness.

⁴None sueth in righteousness,

And none pleadeth in truth;

They trust in vanity, and speak lies,

They conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.

⁵They hatch basilisks' eggs,

And weave the spider's web;

He that eateth of their eggs dieth,

And that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper.

⁶Their webs shall not become garments,

Neither shall men cover themselves with their works;

Their works are works of iniquity,

And the act of violence is in their hands.

⁷Their feet run to evil,

And they make haste to shed innocent blood;

Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity,

Desolation and destruction are in their paths.

⁸The way of peace they know not,

And there is no right in their goings;

They have made them crooked paths,

Whosoever goeth therein doth not know peace.

 

⁹Therefore is justice far from us,

Neither doth righteousness overtake us;

We look for light, but behold darkness,

For brightness, but we walk in gloom.

¹⁰We grope for the wall like the blind,

Yea, as they that have no eyes do we grope;

We stumble at noonday as in the twilight;

We are in dark places like the dead.

¹¹We all growl like bears,

And mourn sore like doves;

We look for right, but there is none;

For salvation, but it is far off from us.

 

¹²For our transgressions are multiplied before Thee,

And our sins testify against us;

For our transgressions are present to us,

And as for our iniquities, we know them:

¹³Transgressing and denying the Lord,

And turning away from following our God,

Speaking oppression and perverseness,

Conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.

¹⁴And justice is turned away backward,

And righteousness standeth afar off;

550