Bible Strands
Isaiah 59:3
For your hands are stained with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue mutters injustice.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The prophet delivers Yahweh’s declaration to the covenant community during a period of national moral collapse. This statement directly follows the warning that accumulated iniquity has erected a barrier blocking divine hearing.
The words — The text describes hands stained with blood (negoʾalu, defiled) and fingers marked by iniquity (ʿavon, moral guilt) to anchor physical corruption in ethical failure. These lexical choices explicitly tie outward violence and deceit to an inward condition of rebellion.
The thread — This linkage of defiled hands and false speech reappears in Isaiah 1:15, where outstretched prayer hands are rejected due to bloodstained actions. It also aligns with Ezekiel 13:8 against those who utter vain words and Jeremiah 2:34 regarding garments stained with innocent blood.
Why it lands — The passage demands acknowledgment that verbal appeals or ritual gestures cannot override ethical conduct. Readers must confront the direct consequence that corrupted speech and violent actions actively sever communion with God.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 1:15 When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; even though you multiply your prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood.
- Ezekiel 13:8 Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Because you have uttered vain words and seen false visions, I am against you, declares the Lord GOD.
- Jeremiah 2:34 Moreover, your skirts are stained with the blood of the innocent poor, though you did not find them breaking in. But in spite of all these things
- Isaiah 1:21 See how the faithful city has become a harlot! She once was full of justice; righteousness resided within her, but now only murderers!
- Jeremiah 2:30 “I have struck your sons in vain; they accepted no discipline. Your own sword has devoured your prophets like a voracious lion.”
- Jeremiah 7:8 But look, you keep trusting in deceptive words to no avail.
- Ezekiel 7:23 Forge the chain, for the land is full of crimes of bloodshed, and the city is full of violence.
- Ezekiel 9:9 He replied, “The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great. The land is full of bloodshed, and the city is full of perversity. For they say, ‘The LORD has forsaken the land; the LORD does not see.’
- Ezekiel 35:6 therefore as surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I will give you over to bloodshed and it will pursue you. Since you did not hate bloodshed, it will pursue you.
- Hosea 4:2 Cursing and lying, murder and stealing, and adultery are rampant; one act of bloodshed follows another.