(63:19b) ¹  If only you would tear apart the sky ²  and come down! The mountains would tremble ³  before you!

I am not angry. I wish I could confront some thorns and briers! Then I would march against them ¹  for battle; I would set them ²  all on fire,

Your descendants would have been as numerous as sand, ¹  and your children ²  like its granules. Their name would not have been cut off and eliminated from my presence. ³ 

If the Lord who commands armies ¹  had not left us a few survivors, we would have quickly become like Sodom, ²  we would have become like Gomorrah.

If only you had obeyed my ¹  commandments, prosperity would have flowed to you like a river, ²  deliverance would have come to you like the waves of the sea. ³ 

For this is what the master, the Lord, the Holy One of Israel says: “If you repented and patiently waited for me, you would be delivered; ¹  if you calmly trusted in me you would find strength, ²  but you are unwilling.

Not even Lebanon could supply enough firewood for a sacrifice; ¹  its wild animals would not provide enough burnt offerings. ² 

For I will not be hostile ¹  forever or perpetually angry, for then man’s spirit would grow faint before me, ²  the life-giving breath I created.

Who would have believed ¹  what we ²  just heard? ³  When ⁴  was the Lord’s power ⁵  revealed through him?

You said, ‘I will rule forever as permanent queen!’ ¹  You did not think about these things; ²  you did not consider how it would turn out. ³ 

Then you must recall the Lord’s instructions and the prophetic testimony of what would happen. ¹  Certainly they say such things because their minds are spiritually darkened. ² 

Your claim to have a strategy and military strength is just empty talk. ¹  In whom are you trusting, that you would dare to rebel against me?

“As far as I am concerned, this is like in Noah’s time, ¹  when I vowed that the waters of Noah’s flood ²  would never again cover the earth. In the same way I have vowed that I will not be angry at you or shout at you.

Whom are you worried about? Whom do you fear, that you would act so deceitfully and not remember me or think about me? ¹  Because I have been silent for so long, ²  you are not afraid of me. ³ 

I ¹  will greatly rejoice ²  in the Lord; I will be overjoyed because of my God. ³  For he clothes me in garments of deliverance; he puts on me a robe symbolizing vindication. ⁴  I look like a bridegroom when he wears a turban as a priest would; I look like a bride when she puts on her jewelry. ⁵ 

In the past he said to them, ¹  “This is where security can be found. Provide security for the one who is exhausted! This is where rest can be found.” ²  But they refused to listen.

Who handed Jacob over to the robber? Who handed Israel over to the looters? ¹  Was it not the Lord, against whom we sinned? They refused to follow his commands; they disobeyed his law. ² 

Who forms a god and casts an idol that will prove worthless? ¹ 

Is this the one who made the world like a desert, who ruined its ¹  cities, and refused to free his prisoners so they could return home?”’ ² 

You did not hear, you do not know, you were not told beforehand. ¹  For I know that you are very deceitful; ²  you were labeled ³  a rebel from birth.