Category: ESV First Person

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ESV First Person Method for Prayer

Bewail your Many Actual Transgressions, Especially your Pride

Confession 2.7 | ESV

We must likewise bewail our many actual transgressions, in thought, word, and deed.

I have sinned, Father, against heaven and before you: Luke 15:18(ESV) All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; Romans 3:23(ESV) for the God in whose hand is my breath and whose are all my ways, I have not honored. Daniel 5:23(ESV)

Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; Psalm 51:4(ESV) neither have I obeyed the voice of the LORD my God by walking in his laws, which he has set before me, Daniel 9:10(ESV) though they are holy and righteous and good. Romans 7:12(ESV)

Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Psalm 19:12(ESV)

In many things I stumble, James 3:2(ESV) and my iniquities are more than the hairs of my head. Psalm 40:12(ESV)

As a well keeps its water fresh, so my heart keeps fresh its evil; Jeremiah 6:7(ESV) and this has been my way from my youth up, that I have not obeyed your voice. Jeremiah 22:21(ESV)

Out of the evil treasure of my heart, I have brought forth much evil. Matthew 12:35(ESV)

We must confess and bewail the workings of pride in us.

I have every reason to be humbled for the pride of my heart; 2 Chronicles 32:26(ESV) for I have thought of myself more highly than I ought to think and have not thought with sober judgment, Romans 12:3(ESV) nor have I walked humbly with my God. Micah 6:8(ESV)

I have leaned on my own understanding, Proverbs 3:5(ESV) and trusted in my own mind, Proverbs 28:26(ESV) and have sacrificed to my own net. Habakkuk 1:16(ESV)

I have sought my own glory more than the glory of him who sent me, John 7:18(ESV) and have been arrogant concerning that for which I should have mourned. 1 Corinthians 5:2(ESV)

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ESV First Person Method for Prayer

Lament and Confess your Sins of Omission

Confession 2.6 | ESV

We must lament and confess our omissions of duty, our neglect of it and triflings in it; and that we have done so little since we came into the world of the great work we were sent into the world about, so very little to answer the end of our creation or of our redemption, of our birth and of our baptism; and that we have profited no more by the means of grace.

I have been as a fig tree planted in the vineyard, and you have come many years seeking fruit from me but have found none; and therefore I might justly be cut down and thrown into the fire for using up the ground: Luke 13:6-7(ESV) You have come looking for grapes, but behold wild grapes; Isaiah 5:4(ESV) for I have been an empty vine bringing forth fruit to myself. Hosea 10:1(ESV)

I have known the right thing to do, but have failed to do it. James 4:17(ESV) I have hid my Master’s money, Matthew 25:18(ESV) and therefore deserve the doom of the wicked and slothful servant. Matthew 25:26(ESV)

I have been an unfaithful steward who has wasted my Lord’s possessions; Luke 16:1(ESV) for one sinner destroys much good. Ecclesiastes 9:18(ESV)

Often there has been money in my hand to buy wisdom, yet I have had no sense to; Proverbs 17:16(ESV) or like the fool my heart has been inclined to the left. Ecclesiastes 10:2(ESV)

My youth and dawn of life were vanity, Ecclesiastes 11:10(ESV) and I have brought my years to an end like a sigh. Psalm 90:9(ESV)

I have not known or improved the day of my visitation; Luke 19:44(ESV) have not prepared bread in summer nor gathered food in harvest, though I have had chiefs, officers, and rulers. Proverbs 6:7-8(ESV)

I am slow of heart to understand and believe; Luke 24:25(ESV) and though by this time I ought to be a teacher of others, I am yet to learn the basic principles of the oracles of God: I have need of milk, and cannot bear solid food. Hebrews 5:12(ESV)

I have done away with the fear of God and hindered meditation before God; Job 15:4(ESV) I have not called upon your name, nor roused myself to take hold of you. Isaiah 64:7(ESV)

I have come to you as your people come, and have sat before you as your people sit, and have heard what you have said, when my heart at the same time has been set after gain. Ezekiel 33:31(ESV) And thus have I brought the torn and the lame and the sick for sacrifice; have presented to my God that which I would not have presented to my governor; Malachi 1:8(ESV) and have vowed and sacrificed to the Lord what is blemished, when I had in my flock a male. Malachi 1:14(ESV)

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ESV First Person Method for Prayer

Lament and Confess the Corruption of your Entire Being

Confession 2.5 | ESV

The corruption of the whole man: Irregular appetites towards those things that are pleasing to sense, and inordinate passions against those things that are displeasing, and an alienation of the mind from the principles, powers, and pleasures of the spiritual and divine life.

I am born of the flesh, and I am flesh. John 3:6(ESV) Dust I am: Genesis 3:19(ESV) I have borne the image of the man of dust; 1 Corinthians 15:49(ESV) and in me (that is, in my flesh) dwells nothing good. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out; for I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Romans 7:18-19(ESV)

I have a law in my members my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members; Romans 7:23(ESV) so that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand, Romans 7:21(ESV) and clings to us so closely. Hebrews 12:1(ESV)

The whole head is sick, the whole heart is faint; from the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in me, but bruises and sores and raw wounds. Isaiah 1:5-6(ESV)

There is in me a bent to turn away from the living God: Hosea 11:7(ESV) My heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick; who can understand them? Jeremiah 17:9(ESV) They start aside like a treacherous bow. Hosea 7:16(ESV)

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ESV First Person Method for Prayer

Lament and Confess your Vain Thoughts and Carnal Affections

Confession 2.4 | ESV

The vanity of our thoughts, their neglect of those things which they ought to be conversant with and dwelling upon those things that are unworthy of them and tend to corrupt our minds.

Every intention of the thoughts of my heart is evil, only evil, and that continually, Genesis 6:5(ESV) and it has been so from my youth. Genesis 8:21(ESV)

O how long have those wicked thoughts lodged within us! Jeremiah 4:14(ESV) Like the devising of folly, those thoughts are sin. Proverbs 24:9(ESV) From within, out of the heart, come evil thoughts, Matthew 15:19(ESV) which devise evil on the bed, Micah 2:1(ESV) and carry the heart with the fool’s eyes to the ends of the earth. Proverbs 17:24(ESV)

But God is not in all my thoughts; Psalm 10:4(ESV) it is well if he is in any of them. Of the Rock that bore me, I have been unmindful and have forgotten the God who gave us birth: Deuteronomy 32:18(ESV) I have forgotten him days without number, Jeremiah 2:32(ESV) and our hearts have gone after worthlessness and become worthless. Jeremiah 2:5(ESV) My inward thought having been that my houses should continue forever; this, my way, is the path of those who have foolish confidence. Psalm 49:11-13(ESV)


The carnality of our affections, their being placed upon wrong objects and carried beyond due bounds.

I have set my mind on things beneath, which should have been set on things above, where my treasure is, Matthew 6:21(ESV) where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; Colossians 3:1-2(ESV) these are the things which we should seek.

I have paid regard to vain idols and forsaken our hope of steadfast love; Jonah 2:8(ESV) have forsaken the fountain of living waters, for cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. Jeremiah 2:13(ESV)

I have trampled the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, Amos 2:7(ESV) and have been anxious concerning what I shall eat and what I shall drink and what I shall wear, the things after which the Gentiles seek. Matthew 6:31-33(ESV)

I have lifted up my soul to what is false, Psalm 24:4(ESV) and set my eyes on that which is nothing; have looked at the things that are seen, which are temporal, but the things that are eternal have been forgotten and postponed. 2 Corinthians 4:18(ESV)