Israel’s prayer for its king was a prayer for justice, for right judgement and for the defence of the oppressed. My prayer for my country’s government and for the governments of all countries is also a prayer for justice, equity and liberation.

‘O God, endow the king with your own justice,
and give your righteousness to a king’s son,
that he may judge your people rightly
and deal out justice to the poor and the suffering.

May hills and mountains afford your people peace
and prosperity in righteousness.
He shall give judgement for the suffering,
and help those of the people that are needy.
He shall crush the oppressor.’

I pray for just structures, for social awareness, for human concern between man and man, and therefore between group and group, between class and class, between nation and nation. I pray that the stark reality of poverty today may come to view before the conscience of every man and every organisation to shake every human heart and every ruling power into moral responsibility and efficient action to bring bread to every mouth, shelter to every family and dignity to every person on earth.

When I pray for others, I wake myself and translate into my own situation what I wish for others in prayer. I am no king, and the destinies of nations do not hang on the words of my lips nor can be changed by the stroke of my pen. But I am a man, a member of society, a cell in the body, and the currents of my feelings run through the nerves that sensitise the whole body into understanding and action. I pray that I may be so much alive with the need of reform that my thoughts and  my words and the very look of my eyes and the spark of my step may kindly in others the same zeal and the same urgency to uproot inequality and establish justice. It is the task of all, and so for me it is my task, to be communicated in full conviction and enthusiasm to all those who in one way or another come into contact with me.

Israel will continue to pray for its king:

‘For he shall rescue the needy from their rich oppressors,
the distressed who have no protector.
May he have pity on the needy and the poor,
deliver the poor from death;
may he redeem them from oppression and violence,
and may their blood be precious in his eyes’.

Then the Lord will bless the king and his people:

‘He shall live as long as the sun endures,
long as the moon age after age.
He shall be like rain falling on early crops,
like showers watering the earth.
In his days righteousness shall flourish,