Bible Verses About Prayer: Pleas offered in prayer

Then Ya'akov said, "God of my father Avraham and God of my father Yitz'chak, ADONAI, who told me, 'Return to your country and your kinsmen, and I will do you good':

I'm not worthy of all the love and faithfulness you have shown your servant, since I crossed the Yarden with only my staff. But now I have become two camps.

Please! Rescue me from my brother 'Esav! I'm afraid of him, afraid he'll come and attack me, without regard for mothers or children.

You said, 'I will certainly do you good and make your descendants as numerous as the grains of sand by the sea, which are so many they can't be counted.'"

Moshe pleaded with ADONAI his God. He said, "ADONAI, why must your anger blaze against your own people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a strong hand?

Why let the Egyptians say, 'It was with evil intentions that he led them out, to slaughter them in the hills and wipe them off the face of the earth'? Turn from your fierce anger! Relent! Don't bring such disaster on your people!

Remember Avraham, Yitz'chak and Isra'el, your servants, to whom you swore by your very self. You promised them, 'I will make your descendants as many as the stars in the sky; and I will give all this land I have spoken about to your descendants; and they will possess it forever.'"

Now, please, if it is really the case that I have found favor in your sight, show me your ways; so that I will understand you and continue finding favor in your sight. Moreover, keep on seeing this nation as your people."

However, Moshe replied to ADONAI, "When the Egyptians hear about this -[and they will,] because it was from among them that you, by your strength, brought this people up -

they will tell the people living in this land. They have heard that you, ADONAI, are with this people; that you, ADONAI, are seen face to face; that your cloud stands over them; that you go ahead of them in a column of cloud by day and a column of fire by night.

If you kill off this people at a single stroke, then the nations that have heard of your reputation will say

that the reason ADONAI slaughtered this people in the desert is that he wasn't able to bring them into the land which he swore to give them.

So now, please, let Adonai's power be as great as when you said,

'ADONAI is slow to anger, rich in grace, forgiving offenses and crimes; yet not exonerating the guilty, but causing the negative effects of the parents' offenses to be experienced by their children and even by the third and fourth generations.'

They fell on their faces and said, "Oh God, God of the spirits of all humankind, if one person sins, are you going to be angry with the entire assembly?"

'Adonai ELOHIM, you have begun to reveal your greatness to your servant, and your strong hand - for what other god is there in heaven or on earth that can do the works and mighty deeds that you do?

Please! Let me go across and see the good land on the other side of the Yarden, that wonderful hill-country and the L'vanon!'

Then I fell down before ADONAI, as I had the first time, for forty days and nights, during which time I neither ate food nor drank water, all because of the sin you committed by doing what was evil in the sight of ADONAI and thus provoking him.

"So I fell down before ADONAI for those forty days and nights; and I lay there; because ADONAI had said he would destroy you.

I prayed to ADONAI ; I said, 'Adonai ELOHIM! Don't destroy your people, your inheritance! You redeemed them through your greatness, you brought them out of Egypt with a strong hand!

Remember your servants Avraham, Yitz'chak and Ya'akov! Don't focus on the stubbornness of this people, or on their wickedness or on their sin.

Otherwise, the land you brought us out of will say, "It is because ADONAI wasn't able to bring them into the land he promised them and because he hated them that he has brought them out to kill them in the desert."

But in fact they are your people, your inheritance, whom you brought out by your great power and your outstretched arm.'

Oh, ADONAI! What can I say, after Isra'el has turned their backs and retreated before their enemies?

For when the Kena'ani and the other people living in the land hear about it, they will surround us and wipe us off the face of the earth. What will you do then to save the honor of your great name?"