Psalm 139

Psalm 139

The Inescapable God

To the leader. Of David. A Psalm.

¹O Lord, you have searched me and known me.^*

²You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

you discern my thoughts from far away.^*

³You search out my path and my lying down

and are acquainted with all my ways.^*

⁴Even before a word is on my tongue,

O Lord, you know it completely.^*

⁵You hem me in, behind and before,

and lay your hand upon me.^*

⁶Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

it is so high that I cannot attain it.^*

⁷Where can I go from your spirit?

Or where can I flee from your presence?^*

⁸If I ascend to heaven, you are there;

if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.^*

⁹If I take the wings of the morning

and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,

¹⁰even there your hand shall lead me,

and your right hand shall hold me fast.^*

¹¹If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,

and night wraps itself around me,”^c*

¹²even the darkness is not dark to you;

the night is as bright as the day,

for darkness is as light to you.^*

¹³For it was you who formed my inward parts;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.^*

¹⁴I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works;

that I know very well.^*

¹⁵My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.^*

¹⁶Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.

In your book were written

all the days that were formed for me,

when none of them as yet existed.^d

¹⁷How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!^*

¹⁸I try to count them—they are more than the sand;

I come to the end^e—I am still with you.

¹⁹O that you would kill the wicked, O God,

and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me—^*

²⁰those who speak of you maliciously

and lift themselves up against you for evil!^f*

²¹Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?

And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?^*

²²I hate them with perfect hatred;

I count them my enemies.

²³Search me, O God, and know my heart;

test me and know my thoughts.^*

²⁴See if there is any wicked^g way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting.^h*