64
A Prayer for God’s Power
1 If only You would rend the heavens and come down,
so that mountains would quake at Your presence,
2 as fire kindles the brushwood
and causes the water to boil,
to make Your name known to Your enemies,
so that the nations will tremble at Your presence!
3 When You did awesome works that we did not expect,
You came down, and the mountains trembled at Your presence.
4 From ancient times no one has heard,
no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides You,
who acts on behalf of those who wait for Him.*
5 You welcome those who gladly do right,
who remember Your ways.
Surely You were angry, for we sinned.
How can we be saved if we remain in our sins?
6 Each of us has become like something unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;†
we all wither like a leaf,
and our iniquities carry us away like the wind.
7 No one calls on Your name
or strives to take hold of You.
For You have hidden Your face from us
and delivered us into the hand ‡ of our iniquity.
8 But now, O LORD, You are our Father;
we are the clay, and You are the potter;
we are all the work of Your hand.
9 Do not be angry, O LORD, beyond measure;
do not remember our iniquity forever.
Oh, look upon us, we pray;
we are all Your people!
10 Your holy cities have become a wilderness.
Zion has become a wasteland and Jerusalem a desolation.
11 Our holy and beautiful temple,
where our fathers praised You,
has been burned with fire,
and all that was dear to us lies in ruins.
12 After all this, O LORD,
will You restrain Yourself?
Will You keep silent
and afflict us beyond measure?
* 64:4 Cited in 1 Corinthians 2:9 † 64:6 Or like a stained menstrual garment ‡ 64:7 LXX, Syriac, and Targum Yonaton; MT have made us melt in the hand