This beautiful prayer, redolent with pleas the Christian Lord’s Prayer echoes, is from the Jewish Shabbat service:
May the time not be distant, O Lord,
When Your name shall come to be worshipped in all the earth,
When unbelief shall disappear and error be no more.
Lord, in Your mercy...
Fervently we pray that the day may come
When all shall turn to You in love,
When corruption and evil shall give way to integrity and goodness,
Lord, in Your mercy...
We pray for that day when superstition shall no longer enslave the mind,
Nor idolatry blind the eye,
When all shall know that You alone are God.
Lord, in Your mercy...
We pray with all our hearts:
Let violence be gone.
Let the day come when evil shall give way to goodness:
When war shall be forgotten and hunger be no more and all at last will live in freedom.
Lord, in Your mercy...
O may we,
Created in Your image,
Become one in spirit and one in friendship,
Forever united in Your service.
Then will Your kingdom be established on earth and the word of Your prophets fulfilled.
Lord, in Your mercy...
Eternal God,
In whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness,
No strength is known but the strength of love;
So mightily spread abroad Your spirit,
That all peoples may be gathered under the banner of the prince of peace,
As children of one Father;
To whom be dominion and glory,
Now and forever.
