I’ll Praise My Maker While I’ve Breath
Isaac Watts
(1674-1748)

Psalm 146
The Words of the King James Bible and Isaac Watts
Presented in Parallel

What Saith the Scripture?

What Singeth the Poet?

¹Praise ye the LORD.
Praise the LORD, O my soul.

²While I live will I praise the LORD:
I will sing praises unto my God while
I have any being.

I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath,
And when my voice is lost in death,
Praise shall employ my nobler powers;
My days of praise shall ne’er be past,
While life, and thought, and being last,
Or immortality endures.

³Put not your trust in princes,
nor in the son of man,
in whom there is no help.

⁴His breath goeth forth,
he returneth to his earth;
in that very day his thoughts perish.

Why should I make a man my trust?
Princes must die and turn to dust;
Vain is the help of flesh and blood:
Their breath departs,
their pomp, and power,
And thoughts, all vanish in an hour,
Nor can they make their promise good.

⁵Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob
for his help,
whose hope is in the LORD his God:

⁶Which made heaven, and earth,
the sea, and all that therein is:
which keepeth truth for ever:

Happy the man whose hopes rely
On Israel’s God: He made the sky,
And earth, and seas, with all their train:
His truth for ever stands secure;

⁷Which executeth judgment for the oppressed:
which giveth food to the hungry.
The LORD looseth the prisoners:

He saves th’oppressed,
He feeds the poor,
And none shall find His promise vain.

⁸The LORD openeth the eyes of the blind:
the LORD raiseth them that are bowed down:
the LORD loveth the righteous:

⁹The LORD preserveth the strangers;
he relieveth the fatherless and widow:
but the way of the wicked
he turneth upside down.

The Lord has eyes to give the blind;
The Lord supports the sinking mind;
He sends the labr’ing conscience peace;
He helps the stranger in distress,
The widow, and the fatherless,
And grants the pris’ner sweet release.

¹⁰The LORD shall reign for ever,
even thy God, O Zion,
unto all generations.
Praise ye the LORD.

He loves His saints,
He knows them well,
But turns the wicked down to hell;
Thy God, O Zion! ever reigns:
Let every tongue, let every age,
In this exalted work engage;
Praise Him in everlasting strains.

I’ll praise Him
while He lends me breath,
And when my voice is lost in death,
Praise shall employ my nobler powers;
My days of praise shall ne’er be past,
While life, and thought, and being last,
Or immortality endures.