Isaiah 64

64TH CHAPTER^a

¹If only you would split open the heavens and come down! 

The mountains would quake at your presence. 

²Be like the fire that kindles brushwood and makes water boil. 

Come down to make your name known to your enemies. 

The nations will tremble in your presence. 

³When you did awe-inspiring things that we didn’t expect, 

you came down and the mountains quaked in your presence. 

⁴No one has ever heard, 

no one has paid attention, 

and no one has seen any god except you. 

You help those who wait for you. 

⁵You greeted the one who gladly does right and remembers your ways. 

You showed your anger, because we’ve sinned. 

We’ve continued to sin for a long time. 

Can we still be saved? 

⁶We’ve all become unclean,^b

and all our righteous acts are like permanently stained rags. 

All of us shrivel like leaves, 

and our sins carry us away like the wind. 

⁷No one calls on your name 

or tries to hold on to you. 

You have hidden your face from us. 

You have let us be ruined by our sins. 

⁸But now, Lord, you are our Father. 

We are the clay, and you are our potter. 

We are the work of your hands. 

⁹Don’t be too angry, Lord. 

Don’t remember our sin forever. 

Now look, we are all your people. 

¹⁰Your holy cities have become a desert. 

Zion has become a desert. 

Jerusalem is a wasteland. 

¹¹Our holy and beautiful temple, where our ancestors praised you, 

has been burned to the ground. 

All that we valued has been ruined. 

¹²Despite these things, Lord, will you hold back? 

Will you be silent and make us suffer more than we can bear?