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Gustave Doré’s engraving of David standing crowned and bowed as he mourns Absalom

Psalm 103

What St Athanasius said to pray when you want to wake your soul up and thank God, in a letter from the 300s.

  • 22Verses
  • 2Situations

St Athanasius, Letter to Marcellinus

When to pray it

In the 300s, St Athanasius of Alexandria wrote a letter to his friend Marcellinus about praying the Psalms. In it he matched psalms to what people go through. He named this one more than once.

God has slipped into the background, and you want to wake your soul up to Him again.

Because we ought to give thanks to God through everything and in everything, when you want to bless Him you can stir up your own soul with Psalms 103 and 104: "Bless the LORD, O my soul."

Letter to Marcellinus

For the same situation he also named Psalm 104.

You want to thank God, in and through everything.

Because we ought to give thanks to God through everything and in everything, when you want to bless Him you can stir up your own soul with Psalms 103 and 104.

Letter to Marcellinus

For the same situation he also named Psalm 104.

Psalm 103:2

Where it turns

Bless the LORD, O my soul, and do not forget all His kind deeds—

22 verses, Berean Standard Bible

The whole psalm

Psalm 103

Its own heading Of David.

  1. 1Bless the LORD, O my soul; all that is within me, bless His holy name.
  2. 2Bless the LORD, O my soul, and do not forget all His kind deeds—
  3. 3He who forgives all your iniquities and heals all your diseases,
  4. 4who redeems your life from the Pit and crowns you with loving devotion and compassion,
  5. 5who satisfies you with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
  6. 6The LORD executes righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.
  7. 7He made known His ways to Moses, His deeds to the people of Israel.
  8. 8The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion.
  9. 9He will not always accuse us, nor harbor His anger forever.
  10. 10He has not dealt with us according to our sins or repaid us according to our iniquities.
  11. 11For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His loving devotion for those who fear Him.
  12. 12As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.
  13. 13As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him.
  14. 14For He knows our frame; He is mindful that we are dust.
  15. 15As for man, his days are like grass— he blooms like a flower of the field;
  16. 16when the wind passes over, it vanishes, and its place remembers it no more.
  17. 17But from everlasting to everlasting the loving devotion of the LORD extends to those who fear Him, and His righteousness to their children’s children—
  18. 18to those who keep His covenant and remember to obey His precepts.
  19. 19The LORD has established His throne in heaven, and His kingdom rules over all.
  20. 20Bless the LORD, all His angels mighty in strength who carry out His word, who hearken to the voice of His command.
  21. 21Bless the LORD, all His hosts, you servants who do His will.
  22. 22Bless the LORD, all His works in all places of His dominion. Bless the LORD, O my soul!

Psalm 103 is 102 in the Greek numbering Athanasius used, which Orthodox Bibles and some older Catholic ones still follow.

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Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Athanasius’s advice is paraphrased from his Greek.