I will declare thy righteousness, and thy works; for they shall not profit thee.
Parallel translations
- WEB I will declare your righteousness; and as for your works, they will not benefit you.
- BSB I will expose your righteousness and your works, and they will not profit you.
- NKJV I will declare your righteousness And your works, For they will not profit you.
- NASB “I will declare your righteousness and your deeds, And they will not benefit you.
- NLT Now I will expose your so-called good deeds. None of them will help you.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God will expose the worthlessness of Israel's self-claimed righteousness and idol-works. Human merit cannot deliver in the day of judgment.
Overview
With biting irony God promises to declare their so-called righteousness, revealing that their religious works will not benefit or rescue them. Their idolatry and self-justification stand condemned. The verse anticipates the gospel truth that our own righteousness is as filthy rags (Isa 64:6) and that salvation must come from outside ourselves, in the righteousness God provides through Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Rom 3:10–20As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
- Isa 1:11–15To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.
- Matt 23:13But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.
- Jer 7:4–11Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these.
- Mic 3:2–4Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones;
- Isa 59:6–8Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands.
- Matt 23:5But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments,
- Rom 10:2–3For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.
- Isa 58:2–6Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God.
- Isa 64:5Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways: behold, thou art wroth; for we have sinned: in those is continuance, and we shall be saved.
- Isa 66:3–4He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog’s neck; he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine’s blood; he that burneth incense, as if he blessed an idol. Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations.
- Isa 29:15Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the LORD, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us?
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Christ at the center
Isaiah sees him most clearly: the virgin's son Immanuel, the child on David's throne, the shoot from Jesse, the light to the nations, and above all the Suffering Servant pierced for our transgressions (ch. 53).
How Isaiah 57:12 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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