121 Days of Prayer

Pray to the Lord Our God for Us

The purposes of this prayer are: Intercession, Guidance/Purpose and Obedience.

Lord of Hosts, after the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem, they took many of the residents back to Babylon as prisoners. Johanan and some of the remaining leaders of Judah’s army decided to go into exile in Egypt to avoid Babylonian imprisonment, but first they asked Jeremiah to pray for your guidance: “Then all the army leaders, including Johanan, son of Kareah and Azariah son of Hoshaiah, came with people of every class and said to me, ‘Please do what we ask you! Pray to the Lord our God for us. Pray for all of us who have survived. Once there were many of us; but now only a few of us are left, as you can see. Pray that the Lord our God will show us the way we should go and what we should do.’ I answered, ‘Very well, then. I will pray to the Lord our God, just as you have asked, and whatever he says, I will tell you. I will not keep anything back from you.’ Then they said to me, ‘May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not obey all the commands that the Lord our God gives you for us. Whether it pleases us or not, we will obey the Lord our God, to whom we are asking you to pray. All will go well with us if we obey him.” Jeremiah 42:1–6 (TEV). Lord, Johanan and the people with him heard your response to them through Jeremiah, that they must not go to Egypt, and accused Jeremiah of lying (verse 43:2). They disobeyed your command to them to remain in Judah and went into Egypt, thus causing many of them to die there of starvation and pestilence. Lord, you are slow to anger and you abound in steadfast love. Yet you do not let the sins of your people go unpunished. Help us, we pray, to always remain within your will. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.