"If our misdeeds answer against us, O Iahvah, work for Thy name sake! Verily, our fallings away are many; Towards thee we are in fault. Hope of Israel, that savest him in time of trouble! Why shouldst thou be as a sojourner in the land, And as a traveller, that turneth aside to pass the night? Why shouldst thou be as a man stricken dumb, As a champion that cannot save? Yet Thou art in our midst, O Iahvah, And Thy name is called over us: Leave us not!" And again, at the end of the chapter, "Hast Thou wholly rejected Judah? Hath Thy soul loathed Zion? Why hast Thou smitten us, That there is no healing for us? We looked for welfare, but bootlessly, For a time of healing, and behold terror! We know, Iahvah, our wickedness, the guilt of our fathers: Verily, we are in fault toward Thee! Be not scornful, for Thy name's sake! Dishonour not Thy glorious throne! [_i.e._ Jerusalem.] Remember, break not Thy covenant with us! Among the Vanities of the nations are there indeed raingivers? Or the heavens, can they yield showers? Art not Thou He (that doeth this), Iahvah our God? And we wait for Thee, For 'tis Thou that madest all this world." In these and the like pathetic outpourings, which meet us in the later portions of the Old Testament, we may observe the gradual development of the dialect of stated prayer; the beginnings and the growth of that beautiful and appropriate liturgical language in which both the synagogue and the church afterwards found so perfect an instrument for the expression of all the harmonies of worship. Prayer, both public and private, was destined to assume an increasing importance, and, after the destruction of temple and altar, and the forcible removal of the people to a heathen land, to become the principal means of communion with God.