Prayer of Manasseh, in The Douay Old Testament (1609–1610)
The Prayer of Manasses, which the edition prints after all the canonical books, outside the canon, because it was extant in most Latin and vernacular Bibles. This is Prayer of Manasseh as it stands in the second tome of the Douay Old Testament (Doway: Laurence Kellam, 1610), the English College of Douai’s Catholic translation from the Latin Vulgate, in its original spelling. The page gives the edition’s Argument of the book and the whole text with its marginal notes.
The prayer of Manaſſes, vvith the ſecond & third Bookes of Eſdras, extant in moſt Latin and vulgare Bibles, are here placed after al the Canonical bookes, of the old Teſtament: becauſe they are not receiued into the Canon of Diuine Scriptures by the Catholique Church.
THE PRAYER OF MANASSES KING OF IVDA, WHEN HE WAS HELD CAPTIVE IN BABYLON.
LORD omnipotent God of our fathers, Abraham, & Iſaac, [Margin: 2. Paral. 33. v. 12.] and Iacob, and of their iuſt ſede, which didſt make heauen and earth: with al the ornamentes of them, which haſt bound the ſea with the word of thy precept, which haſt shut vp the depth, and ſealed it with thy terrible and laudable name: whom al thinges dread, & tremble at the countinance of thy powre, becauſe the magnificence of thy glorie is importable, & the wrath of thy threatning vpon ſinners is intollerable: but the mercie of thy promiſe is infinite and vnſearchable: becauſe thou art our Lord, moſt high, benigne, long ſuffering, and very merciful, and penitent vpon the wickednes of men. Thou Lord according to the multitude of thy goodnes haſt promiſed penance, and remiſſion to them that haue ſinned to thee, and by the multitude of thy mercies thou haſt decreed penance to ſinners, vnto ſaluation. Thou therfore Lord God of the iuſt, haſt not appointed penance to the iuſt, Abraham, & Iſaac and Iacob, them that haue not ſinned to thee, but haſt appointed penance for me a ſinner: becauſe I haue ſinned aboue the number of the ſand of the ſea. Myne iniquities Lord be multiplied, mine iniquities be multiplied, and I am not worthie to behold, & looke vpon the height of heauen, for the multitude of mine iniquities. I am made crooked with manie a band of yron, that I can not lift vp my head, and I haue not reſpiration: becauſe I haue ſtirred vp thy wrath, and haue done euil before thee: I haue not done thy wil, and thy commandmentes I haue not kept: I haue ſet vp abominations, and multiplied offenſes. And now I bowe the knee of my hart, beſeeching goodnes of thee. I haue ſinned Lord, I haue ſinned, & I acknowlege myne iniquities. Wherefore I beſeech diſiring thee, forgeue me Lord, forgeue me: and deſtroy me not together with myne iniquities, neither reſerue thou for euer, being angrie, euils for me, neither damme me into the loweſt places of the earth: becauſe thou art God, God, I ſay, of the penitent: in me thou shalt shew al thy goodnes, becauſe thou shalt ſaue me vnworthie according to thy great mercie, and I wil prayſe thee alwayes al the dayes of my life: becauſe al the power of the heauens prayſeth thee, and to thee is glorie for euer and euer.
Amen.
Colophon
The holie Bible faithfully translated into English, out of the authentical Latin. Diligently conferred with the Hebrew, Greeke, and other editions in diuers languages. With arguments of the bookes, and chapters: annotations. tables: and other helpes. By the English College of Doway. The second tome (Psalms to 2 Machabees, with the Prayer of Manasses and the third and fourth books of Esdras), Doway: Laurence Kellam, 1610 (STC 2207). Copy: Henry E. Huntington Library, as reproduced in Early English Books Online (image set 2087).
Transcription: Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership (EEBO-TCP), Phase I text A11777 (2007), released under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal public-domain dedication.
This is an archival transcription, not a Good Works Translation: the English is the Douay translators’ own, kept in the original spelling, with long s (ſ), u and v, i and j as printed. The Good Works Library converted the TCP text to this page, removing only markup, page breaks and line-end hyphens. In the print a cross (†) opens each verse and the verse number stands in the margin; here each verse is its own paragraph headed by that number. Marginal notes are gathered after each chapter under the number of the verse beside which they stand; where the print sets a reference mark in the text (a letter, four pricks ::, or a star *), the mark is kept at its place in square brackets. In prose sections the marginal notes stand at their places in square brackets. Marks that the transcription records in the text are kept as they stand: ▪ is the transcribers’ sign for a printed mark they could not set, which this edition’s key to its marks uses to point to an Annotation after the chapter, and “ is another such printed mark. Words the transcribers could not read are marked ⟨illegible⟩ (0 on this page); none has been filled in by conjecture.
The edition prints this prayer without verse marks or numbers, so it keeps its own paragraphing without verse numbers.
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