1 A Psalm of David concerning Goliad.
Blessed be the Lord my God, who instructs my hands for battle, and my fingers for war. 2 My mercy, and my refuge; my helper, and my deliverer; my protector, in whom I have trusted; who subdues my people under me.
3 Lord, what is man, that thou art made known to him? or the son of man, that thou takest account of him? 4 Man is like to vanity: his days pass as a shadow.
5 O Lord, bow thy heavens, and come down: touch the mountains, and they shall smoke. 6 Send lightning, and thou shalt scatter them: send forth thine arrows, and thou shalt discomfit them. 7 Send forth thine hand from on high; rescue me, and deliver me out of great 1waters, out of the hand of strange children; 8 whose mouth has spoken vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of iniquity.
9 O God, I will sing a new song to thee: I will play to thee on a psaltery of ten strings. 10 Even to him who gives 2salvation to kings: who redeems his servant David from the hurtful sword. 11 Deliver me, and rescue me from the hand of strange children, whose mouth has spoken vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of iniquity; 12 whose children are as plants, strengthened in their youth: their daughters are beautiful, sumptuously adorned after the similitude of a temple. 13 Their garners are full, and bursting with one kind of store after another; their sheep are prolific, multiplying in their streets. 14 Their oxen are fat: there is no falling down of a hedge, nor going out, nor cry in their 3folds. 15 Men bless the people to whom this lot belongs, but blessed is the people whose God is the Lord.
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.