Where Can I Go from Your Spirit?

¹O Yahweh, You have searched me and known me .

²You know when I sit down and when I rise up;[#139:2 Lit my sitting; #139:2 Lit my rising]

You understand my thought from afar.

³You scrutinize my path and my lying down,[#139:3 Lit winnow; #139:3 Or journeying]

And are intimately acquainted with all my ways.

⁴Even before there is a word on my tongue,[#139:4 Lit When there is not]

Behold, O Yahweh, You know it all.

⁵You have enclosed me behind and before,

And You have put Your hand upon me.

⁶Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

It is too high, I cannot attain to it.

⁷¶Where can I go from Your Spirit?

Or where can I flee from Your presence?

⁸If I ascend to heaven, You are there;

If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.

⁹If I lift up the wings of the dawn,

If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,

¹⁰Even there Your hand will lead me,

And Your right hand will lay hold of me.

¹¹If I say, “Surely the darkness will bruise me,

And the light around me will be night,”

¹²Even the darkness is not too dark for You,

And the night is as bright as the day.

Darkness and light are alike to You .

¹³¶For You formed my inward parts;[#139:13 Lit kidneys]

You wove me in my mother’s womb.

¹⁴I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;[#139:14 Some ancient versions You are fearfully wonderful]

Wonderful are Your works,

And my soul knows it very well.

¹⁵My frame was not hidden from You,[#139:15 Lit bones were]

When I was made in secret,

And intricately woven in the depths of the earth;

¹⁶Your eyes have seen my unshaped substance;

And in Your book all of them were written

The days that were formed for me ,

When as yet there was not one of them.

¹⁷¶How precious are Your thoughts to me, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!

¹⁸If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand.

When I awake, I am still with You.

¹⁹¶Oh that You would slay the wicked, O God!

O men of bloodshed, depart from me.

²⁰For they speak against You wickedly,[#139:20 Or of]

And Your enemies take Your name in vain.

²¹Do I not hate those who hate You, O Yahweh?

And do I not revile those who rise up against You?

²²I hate them with the utmost hatred;

They have become my enemies.

²³¶Search me, O God, and know my heart;

Try me and know my anxious thoughts;

²⁴And see if there be any hurtful way in me,[#139:24 Lit way of pain]

And lead me in the everlasting way.