¹If only you would tear open the heavens and come down![#64.1 63:19b in Heb]

Mountains would quake before you

²like fire igniting brushwood or making water boil.

If you would make your name known to your enemies,

the nations would tremble in your presence.

³When you accomplished wonders beyond all our expectations;

when you came down, mountains quaked before you.

⁴From 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!

⁵You 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.

⁶We 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.

⁷No 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.

⁸But now, LORD , you are our father.

We are the clay, and you are our potter.

All of us are the work of your hand.

⁹Don’t rage so fiercely, LORD ;

don’t hold our sins against us forever,

but gaze now on your people, all of us:

¹⁰Your holy cities have become a wilderness;

Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a wasteland.

¹¹Our holy, glorious house,

where our ancestors praised you,

has gone up in flames;

all that we treasured has become a ruin.

¹²After all this, will you hold back, LORD ?

Will you keep silent and torment us so terribly?