Coverdale Psalms

Psalm 80

In the Coverdale translation (1535)

Psalm 80

Qui regis Israel

HEAR, O thou Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a sheep : shew thyself also, thou that sittest upon the cherubims.

2 Before Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasses : stir up thy strength, and come, and help us.

3 Turn us again, O God : shew the light of thy countenance, and we shall be whole.

4 O Lord God of hosts : how long wilt thou be angry with thy people that prayeth?

5 Thou feedest them with the bread of tears : and givest them plenteousness of tears to drink.

6 Thou hast made us a very strife unto our neighbours : and our enemies laugh us to scorn.

7 Turn us again, thou God of hosts : shew the light of thy countenance, and we shall be whole.

8 Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt : thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it.

9 Thou madest room for it : and when it had taken root it filled the land.

10 The hills were covered with the shadow of it : and the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedar-trees.

11 She stretched out her branches unto the sea : and her boughs unto the river.

12 Why hast thou then broken down her hedge : that all they that go by pluck off her grapes?

13 The wild boar out of the wood doth root it up : and the wild beasts of the field devour it.

14 Turn thee again, thou God of hosts, look down from heaven : behold, and visit this vine;

15 And the place of the vineyard that thy right hand hath planted : and the branch that thou madest so strong for thyself.

16 It is burnt with fire, and cut down : and they shall perish at the rebuke of thy countenance.

17 Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand : and upon the son of man, whom thou madest so strong for thine own self.

18 And so will not we go back from thee : O let us live, and we shall call upon thy Name.

19 Turn us again, O Lord God of hosts : shew the light of thy countenance, and we shall be whole.

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)