For this reason also, since the day we heard this, we haven’t stopped praying for you. We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding,
may you hear in heaven and forgive the sin of your servants and your people Israel, so that you may teach them to walk on the good way. May you send rain on your land that you gave your people for an inheritance.
This is what the Lord says: Stand by the roadways and look. Ask about the ancient paths, ‘Which is the way to what is good? ’ Then take it and find rest for yourselves. But they protested, ‘We won’t! ’
may you hear in heaven and forgive the sin of your servants and your people Israel, so that you may teach them the good way they should walk in. May you send rain on your land that you gave your people for an inheritance.
The following day Moses said to the people, ‘You have committed a grave sin. Now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I will be able to atone for your sin.’
They pleaded with Samuel, ‘Pray to the Lord your God for your servants so we won’t die! For we have added to all our sins the evil of requesting a king for ourselves.’
Then the Lord said to me, ‘Even if Moses and Samuel should stand before me, my heart would not go out to these people. Send them from my presence, and let them go.
If they are indeed prophets and if the word of the Lord is with them, let them intercede with the Lord of Armies not to let the articles that remain in the Lord’s temple, in the palace of the king of Judah, and in Jerusalem go to Babylon.”
So the prophet Jeremiah said to them, ‘I have heard. I will now pray to the Lord your God according to your words, and I will tell you every word that the Lord answers you; I won’t withhold a word from you.’