A Prayer for the Plague

This is the prayer we used on Sunday morning, taken from the Book of Common Prayer. It sounds quite different to many of the prayers that we might be praying. Knowing the right things to pray is often hard. I don’t think we need to change what we’ve been praying, but these might be some different notes to inject into our prayers. The two events it refers to can be found in Numbers 16:41-50 and 2 Samuel 24:15-25.

O Almighty God, who in your wrath sent a plague upon your own people in the wilderness, for their obstinate rebellion against Moses and Aaron; and also, in the time of king David destroyed 70,000, and yet remembering your mercy saved the rest: Have pity upon us miserable sinners, who now are visited with great sickness and mortality; that just as you accepted atonement, and commanded the destroying Angel to cease punishing, so it may now please you to withdraw from us this plague and grievous sickness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.