Add parallel Print Page Options

64 [a]If only you would split open the heavens and come down!
    The mountains would quake at your presence.
        Be 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.
When you did awe-inspiring things that we didn’t expect,
    you came down and the mountains quaked in your presence.
No 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.

You 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?
We’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.
No 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.

But now, Yahweh, you are our Ab.
    We are the clay, and you are our potter.
        We are the work of your hands.
Don’t be too angry, Yahweh.
    Don’t remember our sin forever.
    Now look, we are all your people.
10 Your holy cities have become a desert.
    Zion has become a desert.
    Jerusalem is a wasteland.
11 Our holy and beautiful temple, where our ancestors praised you,
    has been burned to the ground.
        All that we valued has been ruined.
12 Despite these things, Yahweh, will you hold back?
    Will you be silent and make us suffer more than we can bear?

Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 64:1 Isaiah 64:1–12 in English Bibles is Isaiah 63:19b–64:11 in the Hebrew Bible.
  2. Isaiah 64:6 “Unclean” refers to anything that Moses’ Teachings say is not presentable to God.

64 Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence,

As when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence!

When thou didst terrible things which we looked not for, thou camest down, the mountains flowed down at thy presence.

For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.

Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways: behold, thou art wroth; for we have sinned: in those is continuance, and we shall be saved.

But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee: for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities.

But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.

Be not wroth very sore, O Lord, neither remember iniquity for ever: behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all thy people.

10 Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.

11 Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire: and all our pleasant things are laid waste.

12 Wilt thou refrain thyself for these things, O Lord? wilt thou hold thy peace, and afflict us very sore?