1 For the end, for them that shall yet be changed; for an inscription by David for instruction, 2 when he had burned Mesopotamia of Syria, and Syria Sobal, and Joab had returned and smitten in the valley of salt twelve thousand.
3 O God, thou hast rejected and destroyed us; thou hast been angry, yet hast pitied us. 4 Thou hast shaken the earth, and troubled it; heal its breaches, for it has been shaken. 5 Thou hast shewn thy people hard things: thou hast made us drink the wine of astonishment. 6 Thou hast given a token to them that fear thee, that they might flee from the bow. Pause. 7 That thy beloved ones may be delivered; save with thy right hand, and hear me.
8 God has spoken in his holiness; I will rejoice, and divide Sicima, and measure out the valley of tents. 9 Galaad is mine, and Manasse is mine; and Ephraim is the 1strength of my head; 10 Judas is my king; Moab is the caldron of my hope; over Idumea will I stretch out my shoe; the Philistines have been subjected to me.
11 Who will lead me into the fortified city? who will guide me as far as Idumea? 12 Wilt not thou, O God, who hast cast us off? and wilt not thou, O God, go forth with our forces? 13 Give us help from trouble: for vain is the deliverance of man.
14 In God will we 2do valiantly; and he shall bring to nought them that harass us.
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.