¹² Therefore, my dear ones, as you have always obeyed [my suggestions], so now, not only [with the enthusiasm you would show] in my presence but much more because I am absent, work out (cultivate, carry out to the goal, and fully complete) your own salvation with reverence and awe and trembling (self-distrust, ^[a]with serious caution, tenderness of conscience, watchfulness against temptation, timidly shrinking from whatever might offend God and discredit the name of Christ).

¹³ [Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while ^[b]effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and ^[c]delight.

¹⁴ Do all things without grumbling and faultfinding and complaining [^[d]against God] and ^[e]questioning and doubting [among yourselves],

¹⁵ That you may show yourselves to be blameless and guileless, innocent and uncontaminated, children of God without blemish (faultless, unrebukable) in the midst of a crooked and wicked generation [spiritually perverted and perverse], among whom you are seen as bright lights (stars or beacons shining out clearly) in the [dark] world,

¹⁶ Holding out [to it] and offering [to all men] the Word of Life, so that in the day of Christ I may have something of which exultantly to rejoice and glory in that I did not run my race in vain or spend my labor to no purpose.

¹⁷ Even if [my lifeblood] must be poured out as a libation on the sacrificial offering of your faith [to God], still I am glad [to do it] and ^[f]congratulate you all on [your share in] it.

¹⁸ And you also in like manner be glad and ^[g]congratulate me on [my share in] it.

64 Oh, that You would rend the heavens and that You would come down, that the mountains might quake and flow down at Your presence—

² As when fire kindles the brushwood and the fire causes the waters to boil—to make Your name known to Your adversaries, that the nations may tremble at Your presence!

³ When You did terrible things which we did not expect, You came down; the mountains quaked at Your presence.

⁴ For from of old no one has heard nor perceived by the ear, nor has the eye seen a God besides You, Who works and shows Himself active on behalf of him who [earnestly] waits for Him.

⁵ You meet and spare him who joyfully works righteousness (uprightness and justice), [earnestly] remembering You in Your ways. Behold, You were angry, for we sinned; we have long continued in our sins [prolonging Your anger]. And shall we be saved?

⁶ For we have all become like one who is unclean [ceremonially, like a leper], and all our righteousness (our best deeds of rightness and justice) is like filthy rags or a polluted garment; we all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away [far from God’s favor, hurrying us toward destruction].^(A)

⁷ And no one calls on Your name and awakens and bestirs himself to take and keep hold of You; for You have hidden Your face from us and have delivered us into the [consuming] power of our iniquities.^(B)

⁸ Yet, O Lord, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You our Potter, and we all are the work of Your hand.

⁹ Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord, or [seriously] remember iniquity forever. Behold, consider, we beseech You, 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 our beautiful house, [the temple] where our fathers praised You, is burned with fire, and all our pleasant and desirable places are in ruins.

¹² Considering these [calamities], will You restrain Yourself, O Lord [and not come to our aid]? Will You keep silent and not command our deliverance but humble and afflict us exceedingly?