Our Father and God, You have established Your Church as a royal priesthood in this world, and so we intercede for the nations of men now, confessing on their behalf so that the grace of Your forgiveness will soon be extended to them all.
Father, we confess that because we have abandoned You as a nation, the result has been that we have pursued folly after folly, and have mounded them all up in a heap. Father, we collect them as though they were trophies, and we cannot account for this except as a judgment from You. Our seers cannot see, and our prophets produce nothing but lies. The councilors to our princes are shifty and evasive, and we deserve everything we are getting. Have mercy on our nation, O Lord.
We know, Father, that if we in the Church regard iniquity in our own midst, or in our own hearts, this prayer will be ineffectual.
Father, we confess that the Church has been faithless in our obligation to testify against the folly of the world. We have sometimes led the world in this folly, and sometimes have followed behind. But rarely have representatives of Your people taken the stand that they ought to have taken—and when they do, they are often reviled by fellow believers. Father, forgive us, Your people, for we have wandered out of the way.
And Father, we confess our own individual sins to You now—and Selah . . . We do this in the forgiving name of Jesus, and amen.
Hear the pardon of Your God. You have confessed Your sins, as He requires of us, and You have repudiated any and all possible merit of your own. Because of this, and because of the blood of Jesus Christ, as a minister of that blood, I declare that your sins are forgiven through Christ.
Congregation: Thanks be to God!
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