1 If only You would rend the heavens [and] come down; at Your presence the mountains would shake,10 Your holy Cities have become a wilderness; Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.11 And our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised You, has been burned with fire; and all our desirable things are laid waste.12 At these will You restrain Yourself, O YHWH? Will You keep silent, and afflict us beyond measure?2 like the kindling of brushwood [by] the fire—the fire boils the waters—to make known Your name to Your adversaries, [that] before Your face the nations will tremble,3 at Your doing fearsome [things] we could not have expected! You come down, before Your face the mountains shake.4 And from age past they have not heard, and they have not given ear; no eye has seen any God besides You, [who] acts for the one waiting for Him.5 You meet the one rejoicing and doing righteousness; in Your ways they remember You. Behold, You were angry, and we had sinned; in them is continuance, then will we be saved?6 And all of us have become like an unclean one, all our righteous acts [are] as a filthy rag; and all of us wither like the leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind.7 And no one is calling on Your name, stirring himself up to take hold of You; for You have hidden Your face from us, and delivered us into the hand of our iniquities.8 And now, O YHWH You [are] our Father; we [are] the clay, and You the One forming us, and we [are] all the work of Your hand.9 Do not be angry, O YHWH, beyond measure, and do not remember [our] iniquity forever! Behold, please, look; we [are] all Your people!