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