Isaiah 63:15-Isaiah 64:12 - Prayer For Mercy

¹⁵ Look down from heaven, and see from your holy and glorious dwelling. Where are your zeal and your might? Where are the yearning of your heart and your compassion? They are held back from me. ¹⁶ But you are our Father, even Abraham does not know us and Israel has not acknowledged us; you are he, O LORD, our Father, from long ago, "Our Redeemer' is your name. ¹⁷ Why, LORD, do you make us wander from your ways and harden our hearts, so that we do not fear you? Turn back for the sake of your servants, for the sake of the tribes that are your heritage. ¹⁸ Your holy people took possession for a little while, but now our enemies have trampled down your sanctuary. ¹⁹ For a long time we have been those you do not rule, those who are not called by your name.

¹ If only you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence ² just as fire sets twigs ablaze and the fire causes water to boil to make known your name to your enemies, yes, to your enemies before you, so that the nations might quake at your presence! ³ When you did awesome deeds that we expected, you came down, and the mountains shuddered before you. ⁴ Since ancient times no one has heard, and no ear has perceived, and no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. ⁵ You come to the aid of those who gladly do what's right, To those who remember you in your ways. See, you were angry, and we sinned against them for a long time, but we will be saved. ⁶ All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a filthy rag; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind, our iniquities sweep us away. ⁷ There is no one who calls on your name or rouses himself to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have given us into the control of our iniquity.

⁸ But as for you, O LORD, you are our Father; and we are clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hands. ⁹ Don't be angry beyond measure, LORD, and don't remember our iniquity for a season. Please look now, we are all your people. ¹⁰ Your holy cities have become a desert; Zion has become like a desert, Jerusalem a desolation. ¹¹ Our holy Temple and our splendor, where our ancestors praised you, have become a conflagration of fire, and all our dearest places have become ruins. ¹² LORD, after all this, can you hold yourself back? Can you keep silent and punish us so severely?