Your sacred cities have become a wasteland;
    even Zion is a wasteland, Jerusalem a desolation.
11 Our holy and glorious temple, where our ancestors praised you,
    has been burned with fire,
    and all that we treasured lies in ruins.
12 After all this, Lord, will you hold yourself back?
    Will you keep silent and punish us beyond measure?

In his prayer, Isaiah anticipates the punishment the Babylonians will inflict on God’s people as the agents of His judgment (10,11). This will be the outcome of long years of the people’s waywardness. He cares about what is going to happen. He cares deeply, and he prays intensely.

When we see our nation become a ”wasteland” (and much of the church the same), does it move us to pray personally, and motivate us to gather with other believers to seek God’s face? Do we care enough to give ourselves to prayer? I fear that increasing numbers of Christians in the Western world are content to turn up at one Sunday service every few weeks (so long as it doesn’t personally inconvenience them). I know you can’t measure spiritual life by church attendance, but I believe I increasingly see a lackadaisical carelessness about ‘churchmanship’. I think something is seriously amiss. Where are the ”hunger” and ”thirst” for righteousness?

‘Isaiah’s prayer ends with a question; God’s answer to the question will be given in the final two chapters of Isaiah…Note that Isaiah’s prayer begins in the previous chapter with praise (Isaiah 63:7); here it ends with the humble expectation of God’s answer. That’s a good beginning and ending for any prayer.’ Tom Hale: ‘Applied Old Testament Commentary’, p.1070.