1 For the end, a Psalm for the sons of Core, concerning the wine-presses.
2 How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! 3 My soul longs, and faints for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh have exulted in the living God. 4 Yea, the sparrow has found himself a home, and the turtle-dove a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King, and my God.
5 Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will praise thee evermore. Pause. 6 Blessed is the man whose help is of thee, O Lord; in his heart he has purposed to go up 7 the valley of weeping, to the place which he has appointed, for there the law-giver will grant blessings. 8 They shall go from strength to strength: the God of gods shall be seen in Sion.
9 O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer: hearken, O God of Jacob. Pause. 10 Behold, O God our defender, and look upon the face of thine anointed. 11 For one day in thy courts is better than thousands. I would rather be an abject in the house of God, than dwell in the tents of sinners. 12 For the Lord loves mercy and truth: God will give grace and glory: the Lord will not withhold good things from them that walk in innocence. 13 O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusts in thee.
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.