Daniel’s Prayer for the People

9 In the first year ^(A)of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the lineage of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans— ² in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the Lord through ^(B)Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.

^3 (C)Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. ⁴ And I prayed to the Lord my God, and made confession, and said, “O ^(D)Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments, ^5 (E)we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments. ^6 (F)Neither have we heeded Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings and our princes, to our fathers and all the people of the land. ⁷ O Lord, ^(G)righteousness belongs to You, but to us shame of face, as it is this day—to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, those near and those far off in all the countries to which You have driven them, because of the unfaithfulness which they have committed against You.

⁸ “O Lord, to us belongs shame of face, to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, because we have sinned against You. ^9 (H)To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him. ¹⁰ We have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in His laws, which He set before us by His servants the prophets.

²⁹ Jesus answered and said to them, “You are ^[a]mistaken, ^(A)not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.

¹³ till we all come to the unity of the faith ^(A)and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to ^(B)a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; ¹⁴ that we should no longer be ^(C)children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of ^(D)deceitful plotting, ¹⁵ but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the ^(E)head—Christ—

¹⁵ and that from childhood you have known ^(A)the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.