Isaiah 64:6
The context
This chapter is a communal lament, and it comes near the end of a long section of confession. The people acknowledge that their best efforts have not secured them, and they ask God to act. The imagery of the garment is drawn from ritual impurity and from the fading of a leaf.
What it establishes
It establishes that even the community's moral achievement is treated as inadequate before God, and that the confession is made by the faithful rather than by outsiders. The tone is not self-loathing but honest assessment.
What it does not establish
It does not make every human act worthless. The verse speaks of the people's righteous deeds within a lament over national failure, and the comparison is a simile of defilement, not a claim about all goodness. Extending it that far overreads the poetry.
Short note, first pass, October 2026. Corrections welcome.
Cited in these answers
Part of Scripture, Opened — the exegetical layer behind every citation on this site. Scripture quotations are from the ESV.