New International Version NIV
The Message Bible MSG
1 You have searched me, LORD, and you know me.
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God, investigate my life; get all the facts firsthand.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive 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 discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar 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 Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely.
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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 you 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, too lofty for me to attain.
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This is too much, too wonderful - I can't take it all in!
7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can 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 go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, 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 rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
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If I flew on morning's wings to the far western horizon,
10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
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You'd find me in a minute - you're already there waiting!
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,”
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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 will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to 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 created my inmost being; you knit 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 because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full 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 made in the secret place, when I was woven together 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 body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
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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, 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 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand— when I awake, 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 If only you, God, would slay the wicked! Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
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And please, God, do away with wickedness for good! And you murderers - out of here! -
20 They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name.
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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, LORD, and abhor those who are in rebellion 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 have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.
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I hate it with pure, unadulterated hatred. Your enemies are my enemies!
23 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious 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 See if there is any offensive 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.
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.
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.