Mighty Maker of men from the dust and Your breath,
of the star-stuff surrounding eternity’s breadth,
Your infallible faithfulness falters at naught
and Your patience with me, as with all who have sought
after reckless endeavors, has salvaged the scraps
of my harrowed existence and stayed the collapse
I had heaped on myself over years of unjuse
justice sewn in my soul so I’ll rest in your trust.
For You, Father of Avraham, Yitzhak and Yaakov,
by Your boundless compassion, recovered me in love,
that the sea of transgressions I’ve tarried therein
would be dried and I’d be made to carry, within,
overflowing abundance of praise to my G-d
who has made my heart holy and my feet unshod
in the place of my King, as with Moshe before,
where, forever, my spirit is fully restored.

El Melekh Ne’eman

———-

I didn’t post a journal comic tonight because I was writing this - the first poem I’ve written in over a month (and the first of 2012).  Manasseh’s not covered very much in the Bible (just in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles, a little in each), but there’s an Apocryphal Prayer of Manasseh that was pretty cool to find.