Isaiah 59:9-15

Isaiah here points out that sin, which separates us from God, leads to more sin and more separation from God. It just gets worse and worse and worse as we play out this line of sin. So in a sinful society like ours, which is far from God, all you need to do is look out there, get on the Internet, and you will see how far from God they are. Violence and falsehood are rampant. It makes people blind, Isaiah says, lost, angry, depressed. They see widespread injustice. They see that few behave virtuously and truth takes a beating. It has been so abused, that is, truth, that Isaiah describes it like a person falling in the street, beaten down, bloody, wounded. Equity in a case like that, fairness, cannot enter a society like that. No matter what people say, they are not impartial. Everybody out there on both sides are doing all of their striving and yelling and arguing and beating up the other side for their own benefit.

So the final line is what is significant right now, there in verse 15, "He who departs from evil makes himself a prey." Truth is so rare now that people who try to do right, who try to speak truth, have a target on their back. They are the prey and the rest of the world, the sinful society around us, becomes a predator. People who follow the truth are so different from the world around them, and so good relatively, that they make people uncomfortable because they put them to shame. They make them feel guilty. So they lash out at them with fists, with knives, with guns.