Isaiah 63-64

New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

“It is I, announcing vindication,
    mighty to save.”

² “Why are your robes red,
    and your garments like theirs who tread the wine press?”

³ “I have trodden the wine press alone,
    and from the peoples no one was with me;
I trod them in my anger
    and trampled them in my wrath;
their juice spattered on my garments,
    and stained all my robes.
⁴ For the day of vengeance was in my heart,
    and the year for my redeeming work had come.
⁵ I looked, but there was no helper;
    I stared, but there was no one to sustain me;
so my own arm brought me victory,
    and my wrath sustained me.
⁶ I trampled down peoples in my anger,
    I crushed them in my wrath,
    and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.”

¹⁰ But they rebelled
    and grieved his holy spirit;
therefore he became their enemy;
    he himself fought against them.
¹¹ Then they^[c] remembered the days of old,
    of Moses his servant.^[d]
Where is the one who brought them up out of the sea
    with the shepherds of his flock?
Where is the one who put within them
    his holy spirit,
¹² who caused his glorious arm
    to march at the right hand of Moses,
who divided the waters before them
    to make for himself an everlasting name,
¹³     who led them through the depths?
Like a horse in the desert,
    they did not stumble.
¹⁴ Like cattle that go down into the valley,
    the spirit of the Lord gave them rest.
Thus you led your people,
    to make for yourself a glorious name.

64 O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,
    so that the mountains would quake at your presence—
^2 [e] as when fire kindles brushwood
    and the fire causes water to boil—
to make your name known to your adversaries,
    so that the nations might tremble at your presence!
³ When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect,
    you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
⁴ From ages past no one has heard,
    no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
    who works for those who wait for him.
⁵ You meet those who gladly do right,
    those who remember you in your ways.
But you were angry, and we sinned;
    because you hid yourself we transgressed.^[f]
6 We have all become like one who is unclean,
    and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.
We all fade like a leaf,
    and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
⁷ There is no one who calls on your name,
    or attempts to take hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us,
    and have delivered^[g] us into the hand of our iniquity.
⁸ Yet, O Lord, you are our Father;
    we are the clay, and you are our potter;
    we are all the work of your hand.
⁹ Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord,
    and do not remember iniquity forever.
    Now consider, we are all your people.
¹⁰ Your holy cities have become a wilderness,
    Zion has become a wilderness,
    Jerusalem a desolation.
¹¹ Our holy and beautiful house,
    where our ancestors praised you,
has been burned by fire,
    and all our pleasant places have become ruins.
¹² After all this, will you restrain yourself, O Lord?
    Will you keep silent, and punish us so severely?