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64. Praise and Prayer

¹ In Hebrew texts 64:1 is numbered 63:19b, and 64:2-12 is numbered 64:1-11.Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,
   that the mountains would tremble before you!
² As when fire sets twigs ablaze
   and causes water to boil,
come down to make your name known to your enemies
   and cause the nations to quake before you!
³ For when you did awesome things that we did not expect,
   you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.
⁴ Since 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 come to the help of those who gladly do right,
   who remember your ways.
But when we continued to sin against them,
   you were angry.
   How then can we be saved?
⁶ All of us have become like one who is unclean,
   and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
   and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
⁷ No one calls on your name
   or strives to lay hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us
   and have given us over to Septuagint, Syriac and Targum; Hebrew have made us melt because of our sins.

    ⁸ Yet you, LORD, are our Father.
   We are the clay, you are the potter;
   we are all the work of your hand.
⁹ Do not be angry beyond measure, LORD;
   do not remember our sins forever.
Oh, look on us, we pray,
   for we are all your people.
¹⁰ Your sacred cities have become a wasteland;
   even Zion is a wasteland, Jerusalem a desolation.
¹¹ Our holy and glorious temple, where our ancestors praised you,
   has been burned with fire,
   and all that we treasured lies in ruins.
¹² After all this, LORD, will you hold yourself back?
   Will you keep silent and punish us beyond measure?

10. The cities of thy holiness. The Church again recounts her miseries, that she may move God to mercy and obtain pardon. She says that the cities have been reduced to “a wilderness;” and, for the sake of amplification, adds that “Zion is a desert;” because it was the royal residence, in which God wished that men should call upon him. She adds also Jerusalem, in which Zion was; for it appeared to be shameful that a city, which God had consecrated to himself, should be ruined and destroyed by enemies.

She calls them “cities of holiness,” because, as the Lord had sanctified a people, so he also wished that the cities, and even the whole country, should be consecrated to himself. Seeing, therefore, that the cities were dedicated to God, they are justly called “cities of his holiness;” for in them God reigned, and men called upon him. In the same manner we may at the present day give the appellation of “cities of God’s holiness” to those which, laying aside superstitions, worship him in a sincere and right manner.