The Message Bible MSG
New International Version NIV
1 God, investigate my life; get all the facts firsthand.
1
You have searched me, LORD, and you know me.
2 I'm an open book to you; even from a distance, you know what I'm thinking.
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You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You know when I leave and when I get back; I'm never out of your sight.
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You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
4 You know everything I'm going to say before I start the first sentence.
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Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely.
5 I look behind me and you're there, then up ahead and you're there, too - your reassuring presence, coming and going.
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You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.
6 This is too much, too wonderful - I can't take it all in!
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Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
7 Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit? to be out of your sight?
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Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I climb to the sky, you're there! If I go underground, you're there!
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If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I flew on morning's wings to the far western horizon,
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If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 You'd find me in a minute - you're already there waiting!
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even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
11 Then I said to myself, "Oh, he even sees me in the dark! At night I'm immersed in the light!"
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If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,”
12 It's a fact: darkness isn't dark to you; night and day, darkness and light, they're all the same to you.
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even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
13 Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother's womb.
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For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I thank you, High God - you're breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made! I worship in adoration - what a creation!
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I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
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My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, The days of my life all prepared before I'd even lived one day.
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Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
17 Your thoughts - how rare, how beautiful! God, I'll never comprehend them!
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How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them!
18 I couldn't even begin to count them - any more than I could count the sand of the sea. Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!
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Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand— when I awake, I am still with you.
19 And please, God, do away with wickedness for good! And you murderers - out of here! -
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If only you, God, would slay the wicked! Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
20 all the men and women who belittle you, God, infatuated with cheap god-imitations.
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They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name.
21 See how I hate those who hate you, God, see how I loathe all this godless arrogance;
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Do I not hate those who hate you, LORD, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
22 I hate it with pure, unadulterated hatred. Your enemies are my enemies!
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I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.
23 Investigate my life, O God, find out everything about me; Cross-examine and test me, get a clear picture of what I'm about;
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Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See for yourself whether I've done anything wrong - then guide me on the road to eternal life.
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See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.
Scripture quoted by permission. Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica. All rights reserved worldwide.