“When I came, why was there no man? When I called, why was there no one to answer? Was My hand too short to ransom? Or have I no power to deliver? See, by My rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness; their fish stink for there is not water, and die of thirst.
Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of יהוה! Awake as in days of old, everlasting generations. Was it not You who cut Rahaḇ apart, and pierced the Crocodile?
יהוה has sworn by His right hand and by the arm of His strength, “No more do I give your grain to be food for your enemies, nor do sons of the foreigner drink your new wine, for which you have laboured;
And there is no one who calls on Your Name, who stirs himself up to be strengthened in You; for You have hidden Your face from us, and have consumed us because of our crookednesses.
“Diligently search the streets of Yerushalayim, and please look, and know and seek in her open places if you find a man, if there is anyone doing right-ruling, seeking the truth, then I shall pardon her.
“And I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the breach before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it – but I did not find one!