1 For the end, a Song of David, to Idithun.
2 I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue: I set a guard on my mouth, while the sinner stood in my presence. 3 I was dumb, and humbled myself, and kept silence from good words; and my grief was renewed. 4 My heart grew hot within me, and a fire would kindle in my meditation: I spoke with my tongue,
5 O Lord, make me to know mine end, and the number of my days, what it is; that I may know what I lack. 6 Behold, thou hast made my days 1old; and my existence is as nothing before thee: nay, every man living is altogether vanity. Pause. 7 Surely man walks in a 2shadow; nay, he is disquieted in vain: he lays up treasures, and knows not for whom he shall gather them.
8 And now what is my expectation? is it not the Lord? and my ground of hope is with thee. Pause. 9 Deliver me from all my transgressions: thou hast made me a reproach to the foolish. 10 I was 3dumb, and opened not my mouth; for thou art he that made me. 11 Remove thy scourges from me: I have fainted by reason of the strength of thine hand. 12 Thou chastenest man with rebukes for iniquity, and thou makest his life to consume away like a spider's web: nay, every man is disquieted in vain. Pause.
13 O Lord, hearken to my prayer and my supplication: attend to my tears: be not silent, for I am a sojourner in the land, and a stranger, as all my fathers were. 14 Spare me, that I may be refreshed, before I depart, and be no more.
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.