Psalm 139

Evangelical Heritage Version

¹ Lord, you have investigated me,
and you know.
² You know when I sit down and when I get up.
You understand my thoughts from far off.
³ You keep track of when I travel and when I stay,^[a]
and you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before there is a word on my tongue,
    you, Lord, already know it completely.
⁵ You put a fence behind me and in front of me,
and you have placed your hand on me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.
It is too high—I cannot grasp it.

⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your Presence?^[b]
8 If I go up to heaven, you are there.
If I make my bed in hell—there you are!
⁹ I rise on the wings of dawn.
I settle on the far side of the sea.
¹⁰ Even there your hand guides me,
and your right hand holds on to me.
¹¹ And if I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light will become night around me,”
¹² then even the darkness will not be too dark for you.
The night will be as light as the day.
Darkness and light are the same to you.

¹³ For you created my inner organs.^[c]
You wove me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Your works are wonderful,
and my soul knows that very well.
¹⁵ My bones were not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unfinished body.
In your book all of them were written.
Days were determined, before any of them existed.
¹⁷ Your thoughts to me are so precious, O God!
How great is the sum of them!
¹⁸ If I would count them,
    they would outnumber the grains of sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.

¹⁹ If only you would slay the wicked, O God,
so that bloody men would depart from me,
²⁰ men who speak against you maliciously.
Your adversaries misuse your name.
²¹ Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord,
and detest those who rise up against you?
²² I absolutely hate them. To me they are enemies.
²³ Investigate me, God, and know my heart.
Test me and know my troubled thoughts.
²⁴ See if there is any way in me that causes pain,
and lead me in the way everlasting.