1 For the end, a Psalm of 1instruction by David, 2 when Doec the Idumean came and told Saul, and said to him, David is gone to the house of Abimelech.
3 Why dost thou, O mighty man, boast of iniquity in thy mischief? All the day 4 thy tongue has devised unrighteousness; like a sharpened razor thou hast wrought deceit. 5 Thou hast loved wickedness more than goodness; unrighteousness better than to speak righteousness. Pause. 6 Thou hast loved all words of destruction, and a deceitful tongue.
7 Therefore may God destroy thee for ever, may he pluck thee up and utterly remove thee from thy dwelling, and thy root from the land of the living. Pause. 8 And the righteous shall see, and fear, and shall laugh at him, and say, 9 Behold the man who made not God his help; but trusted in the abundance of his wealth, and strengthened himself in his vanity.
10 But I am as a fruitful olive in the house of God: I have trusted in the mercy of God for ever, even for evermore. 11 I will give thanks to thee for ever, for thou hast done it: and I will wait on thy name; for it is good before thy saints.
- 1 v. 1 Gr. governing.
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.