The reading of proverbs (or parimias) - passages from the books of the Old Testament - occurs more often during Lent than at any other time during the liturgical year. They are supposed to be performed on every weekday of Lent, while in the first six weeks (weeks) fragments of only three books are read: at the 6th hour - one proverb from the prophet Isaiah, and at Vespers - two: from the book of Genesis and the book of Proverbs. The proverbs are preceded by the performance of prokeimns (from the verses of the Psalter), and the proverb at the 6th hour is also preceded by a special “troparion of prophecy.”
Starting from Flower Sunday (week of Vai), the number of Old Testament books for proverbs expands significantly. The reading of the proverbs reaches its apogee on Holy Saturday, at Vespers on which 15 proverbs are performed before the liturgy (two of which contain biblical songs: the song of Exodus and the song of the Babylonian youths).
The Russian text of most proverbs is translated by P. Yungerov, but after some editing, the purpose of which was to bring the translation language closer to the modern one. The translation of proverbs from the books of Genesis (starting from chapter 27), Exodus and Kingdoms belongs to A. Melnikov. Both translations were made from the Greek text of the Septuagint, which formed the basis of the Slavic Bible, in contrast to the Synodal, which was made from the Hebrew Masoretic text, which has discrepancies with the Septuagint.
The Church Slavonic text of the troparia of prophecy and prokeimnov is given according to the so-called. “Sergievskaya” edition of the Lenten Triodion (1915).
It is worth considering that the Russian text does not always and not in everything coincide with the Church Slavonic, which has its own explanation in textual issues. The Russian translation of the proverbs offered here reflects the ancient Russian liturgical edition of the text, dating back to the Byzantine Profitology. A similar, more ancient Slavic liturgical text in the Lenten Triodion was in mid. The 18th century was replaced by the chetiy (intended for independent reading) text of the Elizabethan Bible. Related to this are some, however not very significant, discrepancies between the Church Slavonic and Russian texts.
Trying to bring the Russian translation as close as possible to the Greek original, but realizing that no translation can be a copy of it in another language, we gave preference to clarifying the meaning of the original text rather than literal reproduction of its vocabulary and grammatical structures and sought to make our translation, as far as possible, readable and clear in meaning.