The Message Bible MSG
English Standard Version ESV
1 God, investigate my life; get all the facts firsthand.
1
O LORD, you have searched me and known 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 down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You know when I leave and when I get back; I'm never out of your sight.
3
You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 You know everything I'm going to say before I start the first sentence.
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Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.
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 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; it is high; I cannot attain it.
7 Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit? to be out of your sight?
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Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I climb to the sky, you're there! If I go underground, you're there!
8
If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I flew on morning's wings to the far western horizon,
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If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 You'd find me in a minute - you're already there waiting!
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even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.
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 shall cover me, and the light about me be night,"
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 is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with 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 formed my inward parts; you knitted 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!
14
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very 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.
15
My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven 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 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.
17 Your thoughts - how rare, how beautiful! God, I'll never comprehend them!
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How precious to me are your thoughts, O 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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If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and 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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Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God! O men of blood, depart from me!
20 all the men and women who belittle you, God, infatuated with cheap god-imitations.
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They speak against you with malicious intent; your enemies take your name in vain!
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, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
22 I hate it with pure, unadulterated hatred. Your enemies are my enemies!
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I hate them with complete hatred; 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, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!
24 See for yourself whether I've done anything wrong - then guide me on the road to eternal life.
24
And see if there be any grievous 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.
The English Standard Version is published with the permission of Good News Publishers.