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⁹Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us; we wait for light, and lo! there is darkness; and for brightness, but we walk in gloom. ¹⁰We grope like the blind along a wall, groping like those who have no eyes; we stumble at noon as in the twilight, among the vigorous as though we were dead. ¹¹We all growl like bears; like doves we moan mournfully. We wait for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us. ¹²For our transgressions before you are many, and our sins testify against us. Our transgressions indeed are with us, and we know our iniquities: ¹³transgressing, and denying the Lord, and turning away from following our God, talking oppression and revolt, conceiving lying words and uttering them from the heart. ¹⁴Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands at a distance; for truth stumbles in the public square, and uprightness cannot enter. ¹⁵Truth is lacking, and whoever turns from evil is despoiled. The Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice.

¹⁶He saw that there was no one, and was appalled that there was no one to intervene; so his own arm brought him victory, and his righteousness upheld him. ¹⁷He put on righteousness like a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head; he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped himself in fury as in a mantle. ¹⁸According to their deeds, so will he repay; wrath to his adversaries, requital to his enemies; to the coastlands he will render requital. ¹⁹So those in the west shall fear the name of the Lord, and those in the east, his glory; for he will come like a pent-up stream that the wind of the Lord drives on.