Coverdale Psalms

Psalm 121

In the Coverdale translation (1535)

Psalm 121

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I WILL lift up mine eyes unto the hills : from whence cometh my help.

2 My help cometh even from the Lord : who hath made heaven and earth.

3 He will not suffer thy foot to be moved : and he that keepeth thee will not sleep.

4 Behold, he that k eepeth Israel : shall neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The Lord himself is thy keeper : the Lord is thy defence upon thy right hand.

6 So that the sun shall not burn thee by day : neither the moon by night.

7 The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil : yea, it is even he that shall keep thy soul.

8 The Lord shall preserve thy going out, and thy coming in: from this time forth for evermore.

See also the translation of this Psalm in The Authorized Version and the rhyming and metrical translation by Tate and Brady.

A Prayer After Singing the Psalms

O THOU who settest souls at liberty, O redeemer of the world, Jesus Christ, eternal God, immortal king, I, even I a sinner, implore thy immeasurable clemency, that by thy great pity, and by the intoning of Psalms which I an unworthy sinner have chanted, thou wilt set my soul at liberty from sin. Turn my heart aside from all evil, crooked, treacherous thoughts; set my body at liberty from slavery to sin, drive far from me fleshly lust, deliver me from every hindrance of satan, and of his visible and invisible ministers, thy faithless enemies who seek after my soul. Preserve me from these and all evils, O Saviour of the world, who with God the Father and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, and hast the dominion, God throughout endless ages of ages. Amen.

St Bede (?672-735)