Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save,
    nor his ear too dull to hear.
2 But your iniquities have separated
    you from your God;
your sins have hidden his face from you,
    so that he will not hear.
3 For your hands are stained with blood,
    your fingers with guilt.
Your lips have spoken falsely,
    and your tongue mutters wicked things.
4 No one calls for justice;
    no one pleads a case with integrity.
They rely on empty arguments, they utter lies;
    they conceive trouble and give birth to evil.
5 They hatch the eggs of vipers
    and spin a spider’s web.
Whoever eats their eggs will die,
    and when one is broken, an adder is hatched.
6 Their cobwebs are useless for clothing;
    they cannot cover themselves with what they make.
Their deeds are evil deeds,
    and acts of violence are in their hands.
7 Their feet rush into sin;
    they are swift to shed innocent blood.
They pursue evil schemes;
    acts of violence mark their ways.
8 The way of peace they do not know;
    there is no justice in their paths.
They have turned them into crooked roads;
    no one who walks along them will know peace.

God’s people were tempted to blame Him for their sad plight, saying that His arm was ”too short” to help them, or His ears ”too dull” to hear. But they were wrong. The truth is that our sins separate us from God, and this is why we need the Saviour, Jesus. He is the only bridge who can effectively span the gulf between us and God. Without repentance for sin, and faith in Him, there can be no reconciliation with God.

Tom Hale writes: ‘…to blame God is always wrong. Whenever God seems distant and His blessings few, we need to look to ourselves to find the cause: it is our own iniquities that separate us from God.’ ‘Applied Old Testament Commentary’, p.1063.

If we persist in known sin, refusing to turn from it, we cannot expect God to listen to us (see Ps.66:18).

(Note that Paul quotes from vv.7,8 in Rom.3:15-17 to show that all people are guilty of sin: Jews and Gentiles alike).