1 A Song of Degrees.
Unto thee who dwellest in heaven have I lifted up mine eyes. 2 Behold, as the eyes of servants are directed to the hands of their masters, and as the eyes of a maid-servant to the hands of her mistress; so our eyes are directed to the Lord our God, until he have mercy upon us. 3 Have pity upon us, O Lord, have pity upon us: for we are exceedingly filled with contempt. 4 Yea, our soul has been exceedingly filled with it: 1let the reproach be to them that are at ease, and contempt to the proud.
- 1 v. 4 Or, we are the reproach of them that are at ease.
About this text. This is Sir Lancelot Brenton’s 1851 translation of the Septuagint — the Greek Old Testament the Orthodox Church reads, rather than the Hebrew text behind most English Bibles. It is in the public domain. Words in italics are ones Brenton supplied that the Greek does not have; he marked them so that a reader could tell the difference, and they are kept that way here. The numbered notes are his own. Its English is Victorian, and does not match the modern English of the New Testament pages on this site.
On the numbering. The Psalms are numbered here as the Septuagint numbers them, which is how Orthodox service books cite them. From Psalm 10 onward that is one behind a Hebrew-numbered Bible: Psalm 50 here is the Psalm 51 of most English Bibles. The Septuagint also carries a hundred and fifty-first Psalm, which those Bibles do not.