This prayer too was composed by R’ Saadyah Gaon.

We have forgotten Your goodness,

and been mindless of Your great kindnesses;

we have rebelled against Your word,

and have turned away from Your laws.

We have indulged in the vanities of this world,

and to men of arrogance and deceit

we have turned.

We have been very foolish,

we have loved evil more than good,

and falsehood

rather than speaking righteousness,

we have sought impurity rather than purity,

and the loathsome rather than the clean;

we have exchanged

the permanent [world] for the transitory.

Day by day we rise early to sin,

until

our iniquities have mounted above our heads,

and are more numerous than our hairs,

and more powerful

than the words of our mouth,

and exceeded the steps of our feet,

and surpassed the breathing of our nostrils.

We have sunk into muddy depths,

and there is no foothold;

we have come into deep waters,

and a whirlpool has swept us away.¹

footnotes: ¹ Psalms 69:3.

Not You Adonoy, our God, have we harmed,

but [only] ourselves,

not You have we irritated

but [only] ourselves;

for when man sins,

what effect has it on You?

If his transgressions are numerous,

what does it do to You?

But woe to the sons of man

who sin against You,

and woe to their souls,

for they bring evil upon themselves.

Our God, we are too ashamed and disgraced,

to lift our faces to You, our God;²

footnotes: ² Ezra 9:6.

for we are like a repulsive vessel,

thus are we disgraced in our own eyes.

As a man immersed in a [muddy] ditch

and soils his clothing;³

footnotes: ³ Job 9:31.

and as we were conceived in iniquity,

so the shame of our faces have covered us.⁴

footnotes: ⁴ Psalms 44:16.