[1] If only you would tear open the heavens and come down! Mountains would quake before you [2] like fire igniting brushwood or making water boil. If you would make your name known to your enemies, the nations would tremble in your presence. [3] When you accomplished wonders beyond all our expectations; when you came down, mountains quaked before you. [4] From ancient times, no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any god but you who acts on behalf of those who wait for him! [5] You look after those who gladly do right; they will praise you for your ways. But you were angry when we sinned; you hid yourself when we did wrong. [6] We have all become like the unclean; all our righteous deeds are like a menstrual rag. All of us wither like a leaf; our sins, like the wind, carry us away. [7] No one calls on your name; no one bothers to hold on to you, for you have hidden yourself from us, and have handed us over to our sin. [8] But now, LORD, you are our father. We are the clay, and you are our potter. All of us are the work of your hand. [9] Don’t rage so fiercely, LORD; don’t hold our sins against us forever, but gaze now on your people, all of us: [10] Your holy cities have become a wilderness; Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a wasteland. [11] Our holy, glorious house, where our ancestors praised you, has gone up in flames; all that we treasured has become a ruin. [12] After all this, will you hold back, LORD? Will you keep silent and torment us so terribly?
