Bless, O my Soul, the Living God

Isaac Watts captioned his paraphrase of Psalm 103, “Blessing God for his Goodness to Soul and Body.”

1. Bless, O my soul, the living God!
   Call home thy thoughts that rove abroad;
   Let all my powers within me join
   In work and worship so divine.

“Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.”

2. The Lord, how wondrous are His ways!
   How firm His truth, how large His grace!
   He takes His mercy for His throne
   And thence He makes His glories known.

“The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger for ever. He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.”

3. The mighty God, the Wise and Just
   Knows that our frame is feeble dust
   And will no heavy loads impose
   Beyond the grace that He bestows.

“Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust. As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.”

4. But his eternal love is sure
   To all his saints, and will endure
   From age to age, His truth shall reign
   Nor children’s children hope in vain.

“But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children’s children: to such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them.”

This rendering of Psalm 103 was published in Isaac Watts’ The Psalms of David, Imitated in the Language of the New Testament, and Applied to the Christian State and Worship, which is available on archive.org.