Three Reasons to Practice Repentance – Isaiah 59:1-21
59 Listen, Jehovah’s hand is not so short that it cannot save; nor is his hearing so poor that he cannot hear. (2) On the contrary, your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have caused him to hide his face from you, so that he refuses to hear you. (3) Your hands are stained with blood, and your fingers are stained with iniquity. Your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue mutters wicked things. (4) No one calls for justice; no one pleads his case with integrity. They rely upon worthless arguments and speak lies; they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity. (5) They hatch the eggs of vipers and spin a spider’s web. Whoever eats their eggs will die; and when one of those eggs is broken, a viper is hatched. (6) Their webs cannot become garments, neither can they clothe themselves with their deeds—their deeds are evil, and acts of violence are in their hands. (7) Their feet run to evil and they hasten to shed innocent blood. They think evil thoughts; ruin and destruction are in their paths. (8) They do not know the way of peace; there is no justice in their paths. They have made crooked roads for themselves; whoever travels along them will not know peace.
(9) Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We look for light, but all is darkness; we look for brightness, but we walk in dark shadows. (10) We grope along the wall like a blind man; indeed, we grope along like those who have no eyes. At midday we stumble as if it were twilight. We are like dead men among the living. (11) We all growl like bears and moan mournfully like doves. We look for justice, but there is none; we look for salvation, but it is far from us—(12) because our transgressions are many before you, and our sins testify against us; our transgressions are with us, and we acknowledge our iniquities: (13) apostasy and denial of Jehovah, turning back from following our God, plotting extortion and fraud, uttering lies our hearts have conceived.
(14) Justice is driven away and righteousness stands at a distance; for truth has fallen in the marketplace and honesty cannot enter. (15) Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil makes himself a prey. Jehovah saw all this and it displeased him that there was no justice.
(16) He saw that there was no one—he was astonished that there was no one to intercede; therefore, his own arm helped him and his own righteousness sustained him. (17) He put on righteousness as his breastplate, and the helmet of salvation on his head. He dressed himself in the garments of vengeance and wrapped himself with zeal as though it were a cloak. (18) He will repay them according to what they have done: wrath to his enemies, retribution to his foes; he will repay the islands what they deserve. (19) Therefore, from the west men will fear the name of Jehovah, and from the rising of the sun they will revere his majesty; for he will come like a rushing flood driven by the breath of Jehovah. (20) But a redeemer will come to Zion, he will come to those in Jacob who repent of their sins, declares Jehovah. (21) As for me, this is my covenant with them, declares Jehovah. My Spirit, who is upon you, and my words that I have put into your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouths of your children nor from the mouths of their descendants, from this time forth and forever, declares Jehovah.
Now proceed to the next section of this study, entitled, Exploring the Passage.
