The Prayer of Manasseh is a short, penitential prayer attributed to king Manasseh of Judah.
The majority of scholars believe that the Prayer of Manasseh was written in Greek (while a minority argues for a Semitic original) in the second or first century BC.[1][2] It is recognised that it could also have been written in the first half of the 1st century AD, but in any case before the Destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD.[2] Another work by the same title, written in Hebrew, was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q381:17).[1]
O Lord Almighty, God of our ancestors, of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and of their righteous offspring, you who made heaven and earth with all their order, who shackled the sea by your word of command, who confined the deep and sealed it with your terrible and glorious name, at whom all things shudder and tremble before your power, for your glorious splendor cannot be borne, and the wrath of your threat to sinners is unendurable; yet immeasurable and unsearchable is your promised mercy, for you are the Lord Most High, of great compassion, long-suffering, and very merciful, and you relent at human suffering. O Lord, according to your great goodness you have promised repentance and forgiveness to those who have sinned against you, and in the multitude of your mercies you have appointed repentance for sinners, so that they may be saved. Therefore you, O Lord, God of the righteous, have not appointed repentance for the righteous, for Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, who did not sin against you, but you have appointed repentance for me, who am a sinner.
For the sins I have committed are more in number than the sand of the sea; my transgressions are multiplied, O Lord, they are multiplied! I am not worthy to look up and see the height of heaven because of the multitude of my iniquities. I am weighted down with many an iron fetter, so that I am rejected because of my sins, and I have no relief, for I have provoked your wrath and have done what is evil in your sight, setting up abominations and multiplying offenses.
And now I bend the knee of my heart, imploring you for your kindness. I have sinned, O Lord, I have sinned, and I acknowledge my transgressions. I earnestly implore you, forgive me, O Lord, forgive me! Do not destroy me with my transgressions! Do not be angry with me forever or store up evil for me; do not condemn me to the depths of the earth. For you, O Lord, are the God of those who repent, and in me you will manifest your goodness, for, unworthy as I am, you will save me according to your great mercy, and I will praise you continually all the days of my life. For all the host of heaven sings your praise, and yours is the glory forever. Amen.
^ abJ. H. Charlesworth, The Prayer of Manasseh (Second Century B.C.-First Century A.D.). A New Translation and Introduction, in James H. Charlesworth (1985), The Old Testament Pseudoepigrapha, Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company Inc., Volume 2, ISBN0-385-09630-5 (Vol. 1), ISBN0-385-18813-7 (Vol. 2), p. 625.
^Syriac manuscripts are preserved in the Mediceo-Laurenziana Library in Florence, Italy (9aI) and in the Syriac manuscripts of the Didascalia Apostolorum (especially 10DI and 13 DI). There exist also a tenth-century Syriac manuscript in the Saltykov-Shchedrin State Public Library in Leningrad; it is Syr. MS, New Series 19, and is abbreviated 10tI.
^Ariel Gutman and Wido van Peursen. The Two Syriac Versions of the Prayer of Manasseh. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press.
^The shorter books of the Apocrypha: Tobit, Judith, Rest of Esther, Baruch, Letter of Jeremiah, additions to Daniel and Prayer of Manasseh. Commentary by J. C. Dancy, with contributions by W. J. Fuerst and R. J. Hammer. Cambridge [Eng.] University Press, 1972. ISBN978-0-521-09729-1
^Coogan, Michael D.; et al., eds. (2018). "The Canons of the Bible". The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version: An Ecumenical Study Bible (5th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 1839, 1841. ISBN978-0-19-027605-8. OCLC1032375119.
