O Lord, our hearts are heavy with the sufferings
of the ages, with the crusades and the holocausts
of a thousand thousand years.
The blood of the victims is still warm,
The cries of anguish still fill the night.
To you we uplift our outspread hands.
We thirst for you in a thirsty land.
O Lord, who loves us as a father, who cares for us
as a mother, who came to share our life as a brother,
we confess before you our failure to live
as your children,
brothers and sisters bound together in love.
To you we lift our outspread hands.
We thirst for you in a thirsty land.
We have squandered the gift of life,
The good life of some is built on the pain of many;
the pleasure of a few on the agony of millions.
To you we lift our outstretched hands.
We thirst for you in a thirsty land.
We worship death in our quest to possess
ever more things; we worship death
in our hankering after our own security,
our own survival, our own peace,
as if life were divisible, as if life were divisible,
as if Christ had not died for all of us.
To you we lift our outstretched hands.
We thirst for you in a thirsty land.
O Lord, forgive our life-denying pursuit of life,
and teach us anew what it means to be your children.
To you we lift our outstretched hands.
We are thirsty in a thirsty land.
— World Council of Churches in The Complete Book of Christian Prayer by Continuum