Marduk began as a minor local god of Babylon. When Babylon rose to imperial power in the eighteenth century BCE under Hammurabi, Marduk rose with it, eventually displacing Enlil as the chief god of the Mesopotamian pantheon. By the first millennium he was simply called Bēl — "the Lord." His temple in Babylon was the Esagil; his ziggurat was Etemenanki, "the house of the foundation platform of heaven and the netherworld." His astrological body was Jupiter. His symbol was a spade and a snake-dragon.

This prayer is classified among the shuilla prayers — "lifted-hand" prayers, named for the posture of reception: palms raised open to the god's gaze. But it is unusual among shuillas for the depth of its philosophical section. Lines 8–15 do not simply confess sin; they ask whether human beings, under a divine economy that makes ignorance inevitable, could ever have avoided it. This is theology, not apology. The prayer then pivots: having established the conditions that make sin unavoidable, the supplicant confesses anyway and asks for release.

The prayer's most striking feature is its closing litany (lines 29–37): seven brief petitions to seven divine figures — Marduk and his consort Zarpanitu, his son Nabu and Nabu's consort Tashmetu, the warrior Nergal, and the assembled gods of heaven — each line a single request, repeated in parallel. Then the accumulated sin since youth is addressed as one mass and scattered sevenfold. The prayer ends where it began: with the father.

This is a Good Works Translation from Standard Babylonian Akkadian, produced by the New Tianmu Anglican Church with AI assistance.

(šiptu: incantation)

O warrior Marduk, whose anger is a flood —
whose relenting is a merciful father's.

Speaking without being heard has worn me away;
crying out without answer has shamed me.
It has driven the strength out of my heart,
bent me low like an old man.

O great lord Marduk, merciful god —

All of humanity, by whatever name they bear —
who among them understands their own sin?
Who has not been careless? What one has not transgressed?
Who can fathom the decree of a god?

Let me be watchful, that I take no sin upon myself;
let me seek out the shrines of life without ceasing.
Yet the gods have decreed this: to go about under a curse,
to carry the hand of a god as a human being.

I, your servant —
though I have committed offenses,
though I have crossed the god's boundary —
disregard what I did from my youth, known or unknown.
May it not weigh upon your heart.
Release my guilt; dissolve my punishment.

Illuminate my bewilderments;
cleanse my disturbances.

The sin of my father, my father's father,
the sin of my mother, my mother's mother,
the sin of my family, my kin, my clan —
may it not draw near to me. Let it go elsewhere.

When you have made things right for me,
purify me like fresh grass.
Entrust me into the good hands of my god and my goddess,
for wholeness and for life.

May I stand before you always,
with prayer, petition, and deep entreaty.

Let the teeming people of the ordered land praise you.

Release my guilt, dissolve my guilt.
O warrior Marduk — release my guilt, dissolve my guilt.
O great lady Zarpanitu — release my guilt.
O Nabu of the excellent name — release my guilt.
O great lady Tashmetu — release my guilt.
O warrior Nergal — release my guilt.
O gods who dwell in the heavens — release my guilt.

The great guilt I have accumulated since the day of my youth —
scatter it, release it, sevenfold.

May your heart, like the father who begot me
and the mother who bore me, return to what it was.

O warrior Marduk, restore me to life,
that I may sing your praises.

(Sumerian rubric: It is the wording of a lifted-hand to Marduk.)

(Ritual instruction: Its ritual: Before Marduk you set an incense burner with juniper. You erect a portable altar; you set out a mersu-cake, honey, and ghee. You libate first-quality beer. You mix mashtakal-seed into oil and set it before Marduk. You recite the prayer and anoint with the oil.)

Colophon

Colophon: Standard Babylonian Akkadian, first millennium BCE. Classified as Marduk 4 in Mayer's corpus of shuilla prayers. This prayer shows the structural influence of the ershaḫunga ("heart-quieting") prayer genre — the long penitential litany in lines 29–37 and the parental imagery at close are not typical shuilla features. Two manuscripts (MS A and MS d) preserve variant ritual instructions; the translation follows MS A. A catchline in MS A connects to Marduk 9. Text edition: Werner R. Mayer, "Das Bußgebet an Marduk von BMS 11," Or n.s. 73 (2004), 198–214. Introduction and commentary: Alan Lenzi, in Reading Akkadian Prayers and Hymns: An Introduction (Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), pp. 291–311. Normalised Akkadian assembled line by line from Lenzi's grammatical commentary. Translation independently derived from the normalised Akkadian; Lenzi's commentary consulted for difficult forms and restored lines. Translated by the New Tianmu Anglican Church with AI assistance, March 2026.

🌲

Source Text: Shuilla to Marduk (Marduk 4)

Normalised Akkadian Transliteration
(Marduk 4, Standard Babylonian; text after Lenzi/Mayer, Or n.s. 73, 2004)

(šiptu:)
(1) qarrādu Marduk ša ezissu abūbu
(2) napšuršu abu rēmēnû
(3) qabû u lā šemû iddalpanni
(4) šasû u lā apālu iddāṣanni
(5) ammatīya ina libbīya uštēṣī-ma
(6) kīma šībi uqtaddidanni
(7) bēlu rabû Marduk ilu rēmēnû
(8) amēlūtu mala šuma nabât
(9) anna ramānīša mannu ilammad
(10) mannu lā išēṭ ayû lā ugallil
(11) alakti ili mannu ilammad
(12) luttaʾid-ma gullultu lā arašši
(13) ašrāt balāṭi lušteʾʾī-ma
(14) ina arrati ittabbula ina ilī qabât
(15) qāta ša ili ana amēli babālu
(16) aradka anāku šettūtu lū ēpuš
(17) itâ ša ili lū ētiq
(18) [ša ultu meṣḫēriš] ēdû lā ēdû mêšu-ma
(19) ina libbīka ayy-ikkud annī puṭur-ma šērtī pušur
(20) ešâtīya nummer
(21) dalḫâtīya zukki
(22) anna abīya abi abīya anna ummīya ummi ummīya
(23) anna kimtīya nišūtīya u salātīya
(24) ana ramānīya ayy-iṭḫâ aḫītam-ma lillik
(25) ulṭābannī-ma ilī kīma sassati ubbibanni
(26) ana qātī damqāti ša ilīya u ištarīya ana šalme u balāṭi piqdanni
(27) ikribē teslītī u tēmēqī dāriš luzzizku
(28) nišū dešâtu mātu ša ina ašri šaknat linâdūka
(29) annī puṭur annī pušur
(30) qarrādu Marduk annī puṭur annī pušur
(31) bēltu rabītu Zarpānītu annī puṭur
(32) šumu ṭābu Nabû annī puṭur
(33) bēltu rabītu Tašmētum annī puṭur
(34) qarrādu Nergal annī puṭur
(35) ilī āšibū Anim annī puṭur
(36) anna rabâ ša ultu ūm ṣeḫērīya īpušu
(37) suppiḫ-ma adi sebîšu puṭur
(38) libbaka kīma abi ālidīya
(39) u kīma ummi ālittīya ana ašrīšu litūra
(40) qarrādu Marduk bulliṭannī-ma dalīlīka ludlul

(41) ka-inim-ma šu-íl-la dAMAR.UTU-kám
(42–45) Ritual instruction in Sumerian logograms: normalized in colophon above.

Source Colophon

Source colophon: Normalised Akkadian assembled line by line from Lenzi's grammatical commentary in Reading Akkadian Prayers and Hymns (2011), pp. 296–306, following the base text of Mayer, UFBG (Or n.s. 73, 2004), 198–214. Line 18 is partially restored following Mayer's reconstruction [ša ultu meṣḫēriš]; the opening is damaged in the principal witness. Lines 20 and 21 are metrically short and may form a single poetic line in the original; they are given separately here following Lenzi's line numbering. The cuneiform text as reproduced in the Lenzi volume (pp. 309–311) uses Unicode symbols for the cuneiform signs; the normalised transliteration above is drawn from the line-by-line commentary throughout the chapter.

🌲