Coverdale Psalms

Psalm 58

In the Coverdale translation (1535)

Psalm 58

Si vere utique

ARE your minds set upon righteousness, O ye congregation : and do ye judge the thing that is right, O ye sons of men?

2 Yea, ye imagine mischief in your heart upon the earth : and your hands deal with wickedness.

3 The ungodly are froward, even from their mother’s womb : as soon as they are born, they go astray, and speak lies.

4 They are as venomous as the poison of a serpent : even like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ears.

5 Which refuseth to hear the voice of the charmer : charm he never so wisely.

6 Break their teeth, O God, in their mouths; smite the jaw-bones of the lions, O Lord : let them fall away like water that runneth apace; and when they shoot their arrows let them be rooted out.

7 Let them consume away like a snail, and be like the untimely fruit of a woman : and let them not see the sun.

8 Or ever your pots be made hot with thorns : so let indignation vex him, even as a thing that is raw.

9 The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance : he shall wash his footsteps in the blood of the ungodly.

10 So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous : doubtless there is a God that judgeth the earth.

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)