One person wrote on Reddit's r/TrueChristian, "I like praying being the last thing I do before I fall asleep." Another, on Reddit's r/Catholicism, wrote, "last night I decided to fall asleep to a recorded voice recitation of the psalms". If you want a psalm to end the day with, begin with Psalm 63:6-7, then the psalms prayed at night, listening in bed, a psalm for a child, and what to do when sleep stays hard. If you are already awake in the small hours, Bible verses for sleepless nights is written for that.
If you only have a minute
To end the day
Psalm 63:6-7, about remembering God on your bed.
To learn by heart
"When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches."
Night prayer
Psalms 4, 91 and 134 come back in church after church.
Listening
Check which psalms and translation a recording uses, and set a sleep timer.
Hard for months
The NHS says to see a GP, a family doctor.
Psalm 63:6-7, to end the day
Of the psalms this site has reviewed, Psalm 63 is the one that speaks of a bed and the night. Verses 6 and 7 are the passage offered for nights, here with the verses around them:
3 Because your loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise you. 4 So I will bless you while I live. I will lift up my hands in your name. 5 My soul shall be satisfied as with the richest food. My mouth shall praise you with joyful lips, 6 when I remember you on my bed, and think about you in the night watches. 7 For you have been my help. I will rejoice in the shadow of your wings. 8 My soul stays close to you. Your right hand holds me up.
The psalm is written from a dry and difficult place, and the night watches are simply the hours the speaker is awake. The Hebrew for "bed" is mishkab, which the Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon glosses "place of lying, couch." To learn it by heart, the King James wording has a rhythm that stays: "When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches."
It gives you something to do lying down, remembering and turning a thought over, and it keeps you company whichever comes, sleep or the watches. Turn the light off and say verses 6 and 7 once from memory, in whichever wording comes easier. Then take the question that goes with this passage, "What could you turn over in the hours you are awake?", and narrow it to tonight: choose one thing from the day and hand it over. Psalms for anxiety reads the whole psalm and its place in morning prayer.
Short enough to say in the dark.
If you searched for sleep and peace
The passage this site offers for peace is John 14:27, Jesus speaking to his friends on his last evening: "Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you." Bible verses for peace of mind reads it. Psalm 29:11, "Yahweh will bless his people with peace," is on many bedtime lists; it closes a psalm about the voice of Yahweh over the waters, breaking the cedars.
The psalms of night prayer
Compline, or Night Prayer, ends the day in many churches. The Rule of Saint Benedict sets Psalms 4, 90 and 133 "each day at Compline," or 4, 91 and 134 in the World English Bible.
Hover or tap a row to highlight it. Sort by a column heading; a third click puts the rows back in their original order.
| Benedictine | Compline, every night | 4, 91, 134 |
| Catholic | Night Prayer | 4 and 134 Saturday, 91 Sunday, 86 Monday, 143:1-11 Tuesday, 31:1-6 and 130 Wednesday, 16 Thursday, 88 Friday |
| Episcopal | Compline, 1979 Book of Common Prayer | One or more of 4, 31:1-5, 91, 134 |
| Orthodox | Small Compline | 51, 70 and 143 (50, 69 and 142 in the Greek) |
The 1662 Book of Common Prayer has Evening Prayer but no Compline. What the practice gives is the last prayer of the day already chosen, shared with everyone praying it tonight. Bible verses for nightmares reads Psalm 91.
Psalms 4 and 134 are the two that recur. Psalm 4 is David calling to God out of distress and turning to trust, and he speaks of his own lying down: "Search your own heart on your bed, and be still," and "In peace I will both lay myself down and sleep, for you, Yahweh alone, make me live in safety." The sleepless-nights page explains why Psalm 63 was chosen over 4:8 for somebody awake. Psalm 134 is three verses to the servants "who stand by night in Yahweh’s house," ending in a blessing: "May Yahweh bless you from Zion; even he who made heaven and earth." It blesses the people keeping watch at night, which is what Compline makes of it.
The bedtime Shema
Jewish households say the Shema before sleep. My Jewish Learning traces the custom to the Talmud (Berakhot 4b), and the Jewish Virtual Library says the bedtime prayers "are structured around the Shema" and include Psalms 91 and 3. A medieval order, the Machzor Vitry, is on Sefaria; communities differ in the order, and the nightmares page quotes one line.
Psalm 3's heading places it when David fled from his son Absalom, and verse 5 reads, "I laid myself down and slept. I awakened; for Yahweh sustains me." They are the words of somebody who lay down while he was being hunted, and woke.
Other psalms people bring to bed
In Psalm 16:7 a psalmist blesses God for counsel: "my heart instructs me in the night seasons." Psalm 42:8 is from somebody downcast and thirsty for God: "In the night his song shall be with me: a prayer to the God of my life." Psalm 121, a pilgrim song, says "he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep": the one keeping watch is awake, so the one lying down can rest. The nightmares page reads Psalm 139:11-12, and the sleepless-nights page reads 127:2.
Listening in bed
On Reddit's r/PrayerRequests, one person wrote, "I like listening to YouVersion because I can listen to many translations. Sometimes I listen to rain." Another, back on Reddit's r/TrueChristian, wrote, "I've been listening to Gregorian chants when I go to sleep and it knocks me right out."
Abide has psalm readings drawn from its sleep stories, Hallow has Night Prayer, Pray.com lists "Sleep Psalms," and there are hours-long recordings of Psalm 91 read over music. Check which psalms and which translation a recording uses.
The NHS lists "listening to calming music" and "background sounds like rainfall, gentle music or white noise" among things to try. Its insomnia page also names "noise" as a common cause and suggests a bedroom that is "dark and quiet." A sleep timer gives you both. If a screen keeps you up, try a printed psalm, or audio with the screen off.
Research so far covers prayer and spiritual practice broadly. A 2020 review of 10 studies on spiritual approaches to insomnia found promising results, but said the studies' quality and variety "suggest caution."
A timer lets the room go quiet on its own.
With a child at bedtime
Focus on the Family suggests using bedtimes "as opportunities to help your kids trust the Lord." This site suggests Psalm 134:3 said over a child as a blessing, "May Yahweh bless you from Zion," or Psalm 63:7, "I will rejoice in the shadow of your wings," with a hand on the bed. For a child woken by a bad dream, the nightmares page has a section.
If you have had sleep paralysis
The NHS says, "Sleep paralysis is when you cannot move or speak as you are waking up or falling asleep. It can be scary but it's harmless." It can feel "like someone is in your room." A 2011 review of 35 studies found it in 7.6 percent of the general population, 28.3 percent of students and 31.9 percent of psychiatric patients.
One person wrote on Reddit's r/Sleepparalysis, "I recite psalms 91 and it didn’t happen again," as their own account. The NHS links sleep paralysis with insomnia, disrupted sleep, anxiety and PTSD, so if episodes keep coming, see a family doctor, called a GP in the UK. If you have been told it is spiritual, the nightmares page has a section for that.
When sleep stays hard
On Reddit's r/Christians, one person wrote, "I struggle with sleep a lot, I pray to God to help me because it stresses me out so much but I just feel like nothing will change." The NHS says to see a GP if "you've had trouble sleeping for months" or it is "affecting your daily life in a way that makes it hard for you to cope," and that a GP may offer cognitive behavioral therapy, which it says can help change the thoughts and behaviors that keep you from sleeping.
Psalm 63 was chosen for nights because it keeps company with somebody awake, and it goes on doing that on the nights sleep does not come.
The same two verses, whatever the night.
Where to go next
If you are thinking of ending your life, please reach a person now. In the United States, call or text 988 for the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. In Canada, call or text 9-8-8. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, Samaritans is on 116 123. In Australia, Lifeline is 13 11 14. Anywhere else, Find A Helpline lists lines by country.
Tonight, read Psalm 63:6-7 with the verses around it, then say it once with the light off. If something else keeps you up, Bible Nudge can offer one passage for it. Find a passage.
Words that come up here
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Night watches. The divisions of the night kept by watchmen. In Psalm 63 they are the hours the speaker is awake.