Give Thanks and Offer Praise
(RCOG - "Pay All Your Vows to God Most High")

Words: based on Psalm 50: 7, 10, 12-16
as published in: The Psalter of the United Presbyterian Church of North America, 1887 ed. alt***

Music:       Dwight Armstrong

 1.  Hear, O my people, and I'll speak,
        O Israel by name.
     Against you I will testify,
        for God your God I am.
     The fowls are all to me well known,
        that mountains high do yield;
     I also claim as all my own
        The wild beasts of the field.

 2.  Sing joyful songs to God most high;
        give thanks and offer praise;
     And when the day of trouble comes,
        I'll hear and answer you.
     Think thou that I would eat of flesh,
        or ask for sacrifice?
     But rather unto me your God,
        give thanks and offer praise.  ***

 3.  But to the wicked man God says,
        "Why mention my commands?
     Why take my cov'nant on your lips,
        and cast my words behind?"
     He glorifies My name who brings
        the sacrifice of praise;
     I'll show salvation unto him
        who orders right his ways.

***  The last two verses of this song are very different as we move from the original of the song in the old RCOG hymnal, to the 1974 hymnal and finally in the 1993 WCG hymnal.  All three versions show clear indications that whoever was assembling the words was, in each instance, working from a version of the United Presbyterian translation of the Psalm, but each version uses some  different phrases from the Presbyterian version.  The version above is from the 1993 WCG hymnal.

Here, for comparison, are verses 2 and 3 from the RCOG and 1974 WCG hymnals.

2 Pay all your vows to God most high;
    Give thanks and offer praise,
  And when the day of trouble comes
    I'll hear and answer thee,
  Think thou that I would eat of bulls
    or drink the blood of goats?
  Nay, rather unto me thy God
    thanksgiving offer thou.

3 God saith to the wicked man,
    Why mention my commands?
  Why take my compact on your lies*
    and cast my words behind?
  Since thou instruction in thy way
    hast hated my control,
  And since my words behind thy back
    thou cast with much contempt.

2 Pay all your vows to God most high;
    Give thanks and offer praise,
  And when the day of trouble comes
    I'll hear and answer you.
  Think you that I would eat of flesh
    or ask for sacrifice?
  But rather unto Me your God,
    give thanks and offer praise.

3 But to the wicked man God says,
    Why mention my commands?
  Why take my compact on your lips
    and cast my words behind?
  Mark this, you who forget your God,
    and my instruction hate;
  Therefore shall none deliver you,
    for this is my reproof.

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Page last modified on: 07/29/2004