1“O Lord Almighty, the God of our fathers, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their righteous seed;
(2 Chronicles 37)
2 who made heaven and earth with all their ornamentation;
3 who set the bounds of the sea by the word of Your command; who closed the abyss and sealed it by Your fearful and glorious name;
4 before whom all things tremble and fear because of Your power;
5 for the majesty of Your glory is unbearable, and the wrath of Your threats toward sinners cannot be withstood;
6 yet Your merciful promise is immeasurable and unsearchable.
7 For You are the Lord Most High, and are tenderhearted, patient, very merciful, and who repent toward the evils of man.
8 “Therefore You, O Lord God of the righteous, have not appointed repentance for the righteous, for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who have not sinned against You; but You have appointed repentance for me, a sinner,
9 because I have sinned more than the number of the sands on the seashore. My lawlessness, O Lord, is multiplied. Yes, my lawlessness is multiplied, and I am not worthy to fix my eyes to behold the heights of heaven because of the multitude of my wrongdoings.
Manasseh the King was a king of Judah, one of the two Kingdoms of Isreal in the Old Testament. He reigned from c. 686 to 642 BCE. The writers of the Old Testament mentioned that he did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and he chose to worship other Gods than the God of Isreal. And that he committed man abominations, e.g. he sacrificed by burning children in fire to Canaanite Gods. But towards the end of his life, he was captured and sent to Assyria in chains for a while, and then he was sent back to Jerusalem. During his imprisonment, he repented and prayed this prayer.
The prayer text is considered canonical by the Catholic and the Orthodox Churches. However, other Churches debate the canonicity of this prayer. The group of texts that are discussed sometimes are referred to as Deuterocanonical. I thought to include it in this blog because expresses deep repentance.
Here is another translation of the prayer.
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This translation is from The Orthodox Study Bible. You can download the iOS App from App Store or from Google Play. Or you can find it on Amazon in Kindle and Hardcover formats.
References
Athanasius Academy of Orthodox Theology, Elk Grove, California. The Orthodox Study Bible. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2008.
A most beautiful prayer 🙏
Indeed, thank you.