The Hebrew Prophets

Like cattle going down to the valley, the Spirit of the LORD gave them rest. You led Your people this way to make for Yourself a glorious name.

Look down from heaven and see, from Your holy and glorious habitation. Where are Your zeal and might? Your yearning and compassion for me are restrained.

Yet You are our Father, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not acknowledge us. You, O LORD, are our Father; our Redeemer from Everlasting is Your name.

Why, O LORD, do You make us stray from Your ways and harden our hearts from fearing You? Return, for the sake of Your servants, the tribes of Your heritage.

For a short while Your people possessed Your holy place, but our enemies have trampled Your sanctuary.

We have become like those You never ruled, like those not called by Your name.

If only You would rend the heavens and come down, so that mountains would quake at Your presence,

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!

When You did awesome works that we did not expect, You came down, and the mountains trembled at Your presence.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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!

Your holy cities have become a wilderness. Zion has become a wasteland and Jerusalem a desolation.

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.

After all this, O LORD, will You restrain Yourself? Will You keep silent and afflict us beyond measure?

“I revealed Myself to those who did not ask for Me; I was found by those who did not seek Me. To a nation that did not call My name, I said, ‘Here I am! Here I am!’

All day long I have held out My hands to an obstinate people who walk in the wrong path, who follow their own imaginations,

to a people who continually provoke Me to My face, sacrificing in the gardens and burning incense on altars of brick,

sitting among the graves, spending nights in secret places, eating the meat of pigs and polluted broth from their bowls.

They say, ‘Keep to yourself; do not come near me, for I am holier than you!’ Such people are smoke in My nostrils, a fire that burns all day long.

Behold, it is written before Me: I will not keep silent, but I will repay; I will pay it back into their laps,

both for your iniquities and for those of your fathers,” says the LORD. “Because they burned incense on the mountains and scorned Me on the hills, I will measure into their laps full payment for their former deeds.”