Isaiah 64

¹O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,

so that the mountains would quake at your presence—

²as when fire kindles brushwood

and the fire causes water to boil—

to make your name known to your adversaries,

so that the nations might tremble at your presence!

³When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect,

you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.

⁴From ages past no one has heard,

no ear has perceived,

no eye has seen any God besides you,

who works for those who wait for him.

⁵You meet those who gladly do right,

those who remember you in your ways.

But you were angry, and we sinned;

because you hid yourself we transgressed.

⁶We have all become like one who is unclean,

and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.

We all fade like a leaf,

and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

⁷There is no one who calls on your name,

or attempts to take hold of you;

for you have hidden your face from us,

and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.

⁸Yet, O Lord, you are our Father;

we are the clay, and you are our potter;

we are all the work of your hand.

⁹Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord,

and do not remember iniquity forever.

Now consider, we are all your people.

¹⁰Your holy cities have become a wilderness,

Zion has become a wilderness,

Jerusalem a desolation.

¹¹Our holy and beautiful house,

where our ancestors praised you,

has been burned by fire,

and all our pleasant places have become ruins.

¹²After all this, will you restrain yourself, O Lord?

Will you keep silent, and punish us so severely?