Together with us these too will wish to inherit, even if but a little place—these who justify themselves and say that they are children of Abraham—as the Holy Spirit cries out through Isaiah, speaking as if from their own person these words:
Look down from heaven, and behold from the house of Your holiness and glory. Where now is Your zeal and Your strength? Where is the abundance of Your mercy, that You have withheld Yourself from us, O Lord? For You are our Father, since Abraham did not know us, and Israel did not acknowledge us. But You, O Lord our Father, deliver us; from the beginning Your name is upon us. Why, O Lord, have You made us to err from Your way, and hardened our heart, so that we do not fear You?
Return for the sake of Your servants, for the sake of the tribes of Your inheritance, that we may inherit a little of Your holy mountain. We have become as at the beginning, when You did not rule over us, nor was Your name called upon us. If You would open the heaven, trembling would seize the mountains from before You, and they would melt as wax melts from the fire; and the fire shall burn up Your adversaries, and Your name shall be made manifest among the adversaries; the nations shall be troubled before Your face.
When You do glorious things, trembling shall seize the mountains from before You. From of old we have not heard, nor have our eyes seen any God besides You and Your works. He will show mercy to those who repent. He will meet those who do righteousness, and they shall remember Your ways. Behold, You were angry, and we sinned. Therefore we have gone astray and have all become unclean, and all our righteousness is like the menstrual rag of one set apart; and we have fallen away like leaves because of our iniquities; so the wind will carry us off.
And there is no one who calls upon Your name and remembers to lay hold of You, for You have turned Your face away from us and have delivered us up because of our sins. And now return, O Lord, for we are all Your people. The city of Your holy one has become a wilderness; Zion has become as a wilderness, Jerusalem a curse; the house, our holy place, and the glory which our fathers blessed, has been burned with fire, and all our glorious things have fallen together. And over all these things You have restrained Yourself, O Lord, and kept silent, and humbled us exceedingly.