Psalm 71

O Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of just men made perfect, after they are delivered from their earthly prisons:¹ We humbly commend the soul of this your servant, our dear brother, into your hands, as into the hands of a faithful Creator, and most merciful Saviour;²

most humbly beseeching you, that it may be precious in your sight.³

Wash it, we pray you, in the blood of that immaculate Lamb, that was slain to take away the sins of the world;⁴

that whatsoever defilements it may have contracted in the midst of this miserable and naughty world, through the lusts of the flesh, or the wiles of Satan, being purged and done away,⁵

it may be presented pure and without spot before you.⁶

And teach us who survive, in this and other like daily spectacles of mortality, to see how frail and uncertain our own condition is;⁷

and so to number our days, that we may seriously apply our hearts to that holy and heavenly wisdom, whilst we live here, which may in the end bring us to life everlasting, through the merits of Jesus Christ your only Son our Lord. Amen.⁸