Yom Kippur Repentance Prayer
by Cathy Helms
Reprinted with permission. Excerpted from the book, 40 Days of Repentance: A Companion Guide to the LIST. Purchase the book by CLICKING HERE
Holy One of Israel, our hearts are rent, with faces covered with shame and hands stained with innocent blood. With faces to the ground, we bow before You to plead for mercy. We declare that You are our God and we are Your people. We declare that there is no other God. We present ourselves before You today, on Yom Kippur 2019, to confess our grievous sin against You, Yehovah, Elohim of Israel: our rebellion, transgression, and iniquity, and that of our Church forefathers.
Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, to our humble cry for restoration both to You and to our brother, Judah. We have heard Your voice calling to us:
“Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. Take with you words and return to the LORD; say to him, ‘Take away all iniquity; accept what is good, and we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips.’” Hosea 14:1-2 (ESV)
With faces to the ground, we respond to Your most gracious invitation, and indeed we beg: please take away our iniquity! We are murderers and liars, guilty of everything that You call abomination.
Your offer to forgive us and cleanse us has given us the courage to appear before You.
“I said, How I would set you among my sons, and give you a pleasant land, a heritage most beautiful of all nations…” Jeremiah 3:19 (ESV)
As we have begun to wake from our long sleep, it has dawned upon us that we are the prodigal son of Luke 15 who went into a far country, despised Your instruction, and squandered our inheritance.
Your invitation to call You “Father” has humbled and broken us.
“And I thought you would call me, My Father, and would not turn from following me.” Jeremiah 3:19 (ESV)
Therefore, with hearts rent by Your lovingkindness which endures forever, and Your promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that their descendants would be as the sand of the sea, we cry with deep gratitude:
“Abba, Father, thank You for sending Your Son, Yeshua, the Lamb of God, to redeem us with His blood, to cleanse us from all sin and iniquity, to take us to be His bride, that we might be joint heirs with Him. And thank You for sending Your Holy Spirit into our hearts, to bring to our remembrance Your Torah of life, wisdom, shalom, and blessing, so that we are no longer slaves to sin.” Galatians 4:4-6; John 14:26; Deuteronomy 28:1-13; Romans 8:17
You have graciously enlarged our hearts to understand the Hebrew Scriptures as our rightful and precious heritage, as well as that of our Jewish brothers, and, therefore, a sure foundation and a fountain of wisdom. We repent for our forefathers’ claims that Your holy instruction was done away with or lacks relevance to us. We now understand that Israel, the intended holy nation and bride of Yeshua, is meant to model Your great wisdom, by keeping Your commandments, in step with the Bridegroom, being led by the Holy Spirit, that the nations might be provoked by jealousy to also enter into covenant with You.
“For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the LORD
our God is to us, whenever we call upon him? And what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?” Deuteronomy 4:7, 8 (ESV)
Because You have removed our blindness we now see the entire bible is Good News from Genesis through Revelation, which You are writing upon our hearts. Your Word, Your Covenant, and Your Torah are echad, or One, as You and Yeshua are One, and as You desire us to be one with Him in order to draw all peoples and nations to You.
If indeed Your anger has indeed turned from us, have mercy upon us and our children! Heal our apostasy and love us freely! (Hosea 14:4). We see that our ancestors are the people whom You called “Jezreel”, or “Scattered” (Hosea 1:4), “Lo Ruhamah” or “No Mercy” (Hosea 1:6), and “Lo Ami” or “Not My people” (Hosea 1:9).
Yet, You have promised:
“I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the LORD.” Hosea 2:20 (ESV)
“…And I will have mercy on No Mercy, and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’ and he shall say, ‘You are my God.'” Hosea 2:23 (ESV, emphases mine); also 1 Peter 2:10, Romans 11:30
Indeed, Holy One of Israel, we do hereby stand before You and declare:
“I have heard Ephraim grieving,‘You have disciplined me, and I was disciplined,
like an untrained calf; bring me back that I may be restored, for you are the LORD my God.” Jeremiah 31:18 (ESV)
We declare You alone are our Elohim, “the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him and keep His commandments.” Daniel 9:4 (ESV)
We further declare:
“We have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they [we] have committed against you. To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by walking in his laws [Torah], which he set before us by his servants the prophets. All Israel has transgressed your law [Torah] and turned aside, refusing to obey Your voice. And the curse and oath that are written in the Law of Moses [Torah] the servant of God have been poured out upon us, because we have sinned against Him.” Daniel 9:5-11 (ESV)
Holy One of Israel, we are guilty!
“Both we and our fathers have sinned; we have committed iniquity; we have done wickedness.”
Psalm 106:6 (ESV)
We agree with Isaiah:
“For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies; your tongue mutters wickedness.” Isaiah 59:3 (ESV)
But, we plead, along with Isaiah:
“Be not so terribly angry, O Lord, and remember not iniquity forever. Behold, please look, we are all your people.” Isaiah 64:9 (ESV)
You said to Ezekiel:
“Son of man, when the house of Israel lived in their own land, they defiled it by their ways and their deeds. Their ways before me were like the uncleanness of a woman in her menstrual impurity.” Ezekiel 36:17 (ESV)
“I dealt with them according to their uncleanness and their transgressions, and hid my face from them.”
Ezekiel 39:24 (ESV)
As You promised Moses, Your faithful servant, so You have done:
“I will hide my face from them; I will see what their end will be, for they are a perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness.” Deuteronomy 32:20 (ESV)
We who have seen our vast crookedness now cry out with David’s prayer:
“Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your steadfast love; according
to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly
from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done
what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and
blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.”
Psalm 51:1-5 (ESV)
Merciful YEHOVAH, Elohim of Israel, we agree that both we and our Church forefathers have been stubborn, stiff-necked, perverse, rebellious, deceitful, and utterly wicked. We have bowed down to idols, cast off Your Word, and despised Your covenant of shalom. We are guilty of every abomination. It is only because of Your covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and, for the sake of Your great name, that we have not been utterly destroyed!
O Holy One, thank You for forgiveness! Please restore us! Would you please gather us from among the nations where You have scattered us? Vindicate the holiness of Your great name, so that the nations will know that You are YEHOVAH, Elohim of Israel! (Ezekiel 36:22-23, 37:21)
You have promised mercy to a thousand generations (Deuteronomy 7:9, 1 Chronicles 16:15, Psalm 105:8) and You said:
“But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, his righteousness unto children’s children.” Psalm 103:17 (ESV)
Elohim of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, may all Israel and the nations enter into Your covenant and be saved and restored!
Restore us also to our elder brother, Judah.
“Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together and appoint themselves one head.” Hosea 1:11 (ESV)
Make us ONE, all for Your glory! Amein and amein!
Reprinted with permission from the author and publisher. Exerpted from the book, “40 Days of Repentance: A Companion Guide to The LIST”. CLICK button below to BUY THE BOOK!
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