New Living Translation (NLT)
Isaiah 64
9 Don’t be so angry with us, LORD. Please don’t remember our sins forever. Look at us, we pray, and see that we are all your people.
10 Your holy cities are destroyed. Zion is a wilderness; yes, Jerusalem is a desolate ruin.
11 The holy and beautiful Temple where our ancestors praised you has been burned down, and all the things of beauty are destroyed.
12 After all this, LORD, must you still refuse to help us? Will you continue to be silent and punish us?
Isaiah 65
1 The LORD says, “I was ready to respond, but no one asked for help. I was ready to be found, but no one was looking for me. I said, ‘Here I am, here I am!’ to a nation that did not call on my name.
2 All day long I opened my arms to a rebellious people. But they follow their own evil paths and their own crooked schemes.
3 All day long they insult me to my face by worshiping idols in their sacred gardens. They burn incense on pagan altars.
4 At night they go out among the graves, worshiping the dead. They eat the flesh of pigs and make stews with other forbidden foods.
5 Yet they say to each other, ‘Don’t come too close or you will defile me! I am holier than you!’ These people are a stench in my nostrils, an acrid smell that never goes away.
6 “Look, my decree is written out in front of me: I will not stand silent; I will repay them in full! Yes, I will repay them—
7 both for their own sins and for those of their ancestors,” says the LORD. “For they also burned incense on the mountains and insulted me on the hills. I will pay them back in full!
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