AUDIO FILE OF DAS LOBLIED

Click to hear an audio file of Das Loblied.  This audio file is from Saloma Furlong, author of the recent memoir, Bonnet Strings, An Amish Woman's Ties to Two Worlds.  This Amish hymn is mentioned frequently in Amish novels as a song sung during Amish church services.  I found listening to Das Loblied very moving.  Below are the words to Das Loblied translated into English taken from AmishAmerica.com..

Das Loblied

The best known hymn is Das Loblied, or “Hymn of Praise”.   The Loblied is the second song sung in all Amish church services.  It is hymn # 131 in the Ausbund.  Here is an English translation (source):

1. O Lord Father, we bless thy name,

Thy love and thy goodness praise;

That thou, O Lord, so graciously

Have been to us always.

Thou hast brought us together, O Lord,

To be admonished through thy word.

Bestow on us thy grace.

2. O may thy servant be endowed

With wisdom from on high,

To preach thy word with truth and power,

Thy name to glorify.

Which needful is to they own praise,

Give hunger for thy word always,

This should be our desire.

Loblied

3. Put wisdom in our hearts while here

On earth thy will be known,

They word through grace to understand

What thou would have us to do.

To live in righteousness, O Lord,

Submissive to thy word,

That all our vows prove true.

4. Thine only be the glory, O Lord,

Likeness all might and power.

That we praise thee in our assembly

And feel grateful every hour.

With all our hearts we pray,

Wilt thou be with us every day

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Amish churches can differ in many ways, but the Loblied‘s position as the second song sung in every church service is one unifying aspect which stretches over all of North America’s 1,900+ Amish congregations.  Writing of the Lancaster County Amish, Donald Kraybill notes that “on a given Sunday morning, all the congregations holding services across the settlement are singing the same song at roughly the same time, an experience one member described as giving a beautiful feeling of unity among the churches” (The Riddle of Amish Culture p. 123).