Texts that you use every day sometimes become stale for a while, and a paraphrase can liven them up again. There are various paraphrased versions of the Psalter available, and indeed the whole Bible (Eugene Peterson’s The Message). It’s important to hold onto the fact that this is not the Bible text, but a form of commentary or reflection on it. Even so, I have used psalm paraphrases to good effect when leading quiet days and retreats.
My method is to retain key verses and phrases from the original psalm. I use the Common Worship psalter, the one currently used for daily prayer in my church. This version of the psalter is designed to be readable and to echo the much earlier version of the psalms published in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, the foundation document of Anglicanism. It is not always particularly close to the Hebrew. The Hebrew of the Psalms is difficult and you will find widely differing offers of translation in the various Bibles: Bible Gateway’s comparison function can be helpful here.
I follow the Hebrew numbering of the Psalms. Some Christians use the Hebrew numbering and some the numbering used by the Septuagint, the early Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (generally Orthodox and Roman Catholics). Psalms 9 and 10 in the Hebrew are counted as Psalm 9 in the Greek, and from then on the counting is out by one. There is more variation from Psalm 114 (Hebrew) onwards. There is a table in Wikipedia if you need it.
poem prayer silence 