Jeremiah Prays for Understanding

¹⁶ After I had given the deed of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah, I prayed to the Lord, saying:

⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.^{(A) 7} And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.^(B)

Jeremiah Complains to God

⁹ And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, and I will do you good,’^{(A) 10} I am not worthy of the least of all the steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two companies.^{(B) 11} Deliver me, please, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I am afraid of him; he may come and kill us all, the mothers with the children.^{(C) 12} Yet you have said, ‘I will surely do you good and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted because of their number.’ ”^(D)

³⁵ And they will say, “This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden, and the waste and desolate and ruined towns are now inhabited and fortified.”^{(A) 36} Then the nations that are left all around you shall know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt the ruined places and replanted that which was desolate; I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will do it.^(B)

³⁷ Thus says the Lord God: I will also let the house of Israel ask me to do this for them: to multiply their people like sheep.

David’s Prayer

¹⁸ Then King David went in and sat before the Lord and said, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?^{(A) 19} And yet this was a small thing in your eyes, O Lord God; you have spoken also of your servant’s house into the distant future. May this be instruction for the people,^[a] O Lord God! ²⁰ And what more can David say to you? For you know your servant, O Lord God!^{(B) 21} Because of your promise and according to your own heart, you have wrought all this greatness so that your servant may know it. ²² Therefore you are great, O Lord God, for there is no one like you, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears.^{(C) 23} Who is like your people, like Israel? Is there another^[b] nation on earth whose God went to redeem it as a people and to make a name for himself, doing^[c] great and awesome things, driving out^[d] nations and their gods before your people, whom you redeemed for yourself from Egypt?^{(D) 24} And you established your people Israel for yourself to be your people forever, and you, O Lord, became their God.^{(E) 25} And now, O Lord God, as for the word that you have spoken concerning your servant and concerning his house, confirm it forever; do as you have promised.