English Standard Version ESV
The Message Bible MSG
1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me!
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God, investigate my life; get all the facts firsthand.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.
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I'm an open book to you; even from a distance, you know what I'm thinking.
3 You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.
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You know when I leave and when I get back; I'm never out of your sight.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.
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You know everything I'm going to say before I start the first sentence.
5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.
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I look behind me and you're there, then up ahead and you're there, too - your reassuring presence, coming and going.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.
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This is too much, too wonderful - I can't take it all in!
7 Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?
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Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit? to be out of your sight?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
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If I climb to the sky, you're there! If I go underground, you're there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
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If I flew on morning's wings to the far western horizon,
10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.
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You'd find me in a minute - you're already there waiting!
11 If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,"
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Then I said to myself, "Oh, he even sees me in the dark! At night I'm immersed in the light!"
12 even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.
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It's a fact: darkness isn't dark to you; night and day, darkness and light, they're all the same to you.
13 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
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Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.
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I thank you, High God - you're breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made! I worship in adoration - what a creation!
15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
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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.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
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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.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
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Your thoughts - how rare, how beautiful! God, I'll never comprehend them!
18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you.
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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!
19 Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God! O men of blood, depart from me!
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And please, God, do away with wickedness for good! And you murderers - out of here! -
20 They speak against you with malicious intent; your enemies take your name in vain!
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all the men and women who belittle you, God, infatuated with cheap god-imitations.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
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See how I hate those who hate you, God, see how I loathe all this godless arrogance;
22 I hate them with complete hatred; I count them my enemies.
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I hate it with pure, unadulterated hatred. Your enemies are my enemies!
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!
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Investigate my life, O God, find out everything about me; Cross-examine and test me, get a clear picture of what I'm about;
24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!
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See for yourself whether I've done anything wrong - then guide me on the road to eternal life.
The English Standard Version is published with the permission of Good News Publishers.
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.