Coverdale Psalms

Psalm 8

In the Coverdale translation (1535)

Psalm 8

Domine, Dominus noster

O LORD our Governor, how excellent is thy Name in all the world : thou hast set thy glory above the heavens!

2 Out of the mouth of very babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength, because of thine enemies : that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.

3 For I will consider thy heavens, even the works of thy fingers : the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained.

4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him : and the son of man, that thou visitest him?

5 Thou madest him lower than the angels : to crown him with glory and worship.

6 Thou makest him to have dominion of the works of thy hands : and thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet;

7 All sheep and oxen : yea, and the beasts of the field;

8 The fowls of the air, and the fishes of the sea : and whatsoever walketh through the paths of the seas.

9 O Lord our Governor : how excellent is thy Name in all the world!

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)