The dreadful evil of sin is displayed, as the great obstacle to all good from God: yet he will send a Redeemer, and make an everlasting covenant with his church.

[1] Behold the hand of the Lord is not shortened that it cannot save, neither is his ear heavy that it cannot hear. [2] But your iniquities have divided between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you that he should not hear. [3] For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity: your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue uttereth iniquity. [4] There is none that calleth upon justice, neither is there any one that judgeth truly: but they trust in a mere nothing, and speak vanities: they have conceived labour, and brought forth iniquity. [5] They have broken the eggs of asps, and have woven the webs of spiders: he that shall eat of their eggs, shall die: and that which is brought out, shall be hatched into a basilisk.

[6] Their webs shall not be for clothing, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are unprofitable works, and the work of iniquity is in their hands. [7] Their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are unprofitable thoughts: wasting and destruction are in their ways. [8] They have not known the way of peace, and there is no judgment in their steps: their paths are become crooked to them, every one that treadeth in them, knoweth no peace. [9] Therefore is judgment far from us, and justice shall not overtake us. We looked for light, and behold darkness: brightness, and we have walked in the dark. [10] We have groped for the wall, and like the blind we have groped as if we had no eyes: we have stumbled at noonday as in darkness, we are in dark places as dead men.

[11] We shall roar all of us like bears, and shall lament as mournful doves. We have looked for judgment, and there is none: for salvation, and it is far from us. [12] For our iniquities are multiplied before thee, and our sins have testified against us: for our wicked doings are with us, and we have known our iniquities: [13] In sinning and lying against the Lord: and we have turned away so that we went not after our God, but spoke calumny and transgression: we have conceived, and uttered from the heart, words of falsehood. [14] And judgment is turned away backward, and justice hath stood far off: because truth hath fallen down in the street, and equity could not come in. [15] And truth hath been forgotten: and he that departed from evil, lay open to be a prey: and the Lord saw, and it appeared evil in his eyes, because there is no judgment.

[16] And he saw that there is not a man: and he stood astonished, because there is none to oppose himself: and his own arm brought salvation to him, and his own justice supported him. [17] He put on justice as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation upon his head: he put on the garments of vengeance, and was clad with zeal as with a cloak. [18] As unto revenge, as it were to repay wrath to his adversaries, and a reward to his enemies: he will repay the like to the islands. [19] And they from the west, shall fear the name of the Lord: and they from the rising of the sun, his glory: when he shall come as a violent stream, which the spirit of the Lord driveth on: [20] And there shall come a, redeemer to Sion, and to them that return from iniquity in Jacob, saith the Lord.

[21] This is my covenant with them, saith the Lord: My spirit that is in thee, and my words that I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed' s seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever.

[21] This is my covenant: Note here a clear promise of perpetual orthodoxy to the church of Christ.