The Psalms

Psalm 8

In the Authorized Version (1611)

Psalm 8

To the chief Musician upon Gittith, A Psalm of David.

O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.

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

3 When I consider thy heavens, the work 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 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.

6 Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:

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

8 The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.

9 O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!

See also the translation of this Psalm by Myles Coverdale 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)