Psalms 139

World English Bible 89 include this book

1 LORD, you have searched me, and you know me.

2 You know my sitting down and my rising up. You perceive my thoughts from afar.

3 You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.

4 For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, LORD, you know it altogether.

5 You hem me in behind and before. You laid your hand on me.

6 This knowledge is beyond me. It’s lofty. I can’t attain it.

7 Where could I go from your Spirit? Or where could I flee from your presence?

8 If I ascend up into heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there!

9 If I take the wings of the dawn, and settle in the uttermost parts of the sea,

10 even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will hold me.

11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me. The light around me will be night,”

12 even the darkness doesn’t hide from you, but the night shines as the day. The darkness is like light to you.

13 For you formed my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14 I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. My soul knows that very well.

15 My frame wasn’t hidden from you, when I was made in secret, woven together in the depths of the earth.

16 Your eyes saw my body. In your book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there were none of them.

17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is their sum!

18 If I would count them, they are more in number than the sand. When I wake up, I am still with you.

19 If only you, God, would kill the wicked. Get away from me, you bloodthirsty men!

20 For they speak against you wickedly. Your enemies take your name in vain.

21 LORD, don’t I hate those who hate you? Am I not grieved with those who rise up against you?

22 I hate them with perfect hatred. They have become my enemies.

23 Search me, God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my thoughts.

24 See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.

Go deeper in Psalms

28 places named in this book — no place is named in this chapter, so the whole book is shown.

Jerusalem traditional Assembled for temple worship over several centuries.

The traditions broadly agree on this one.

Broad agreement: 1010 BC–400 BC David and many others
The Psalter is a collection assembled over centuries; individual psalms range widely in date.

Events overlapping the period this book is dated to (1010 BC–400 BC).

1200 BC–1000 BC Iron working spreads in the Levant Levant
Iron gradually displaced bronze for tools and weapons across the eastern Mediterranean.
1200 BC–400 BC Olmec civilisation Mesoamerica
The earliest major Mesoamerican civilisation, known for colossal stone heads and an early calendar.
1200 BC–600 BC Zoroaster teaches in Persia Persia
Founder of Zoroastrianism, whose dating is disputed by as much as six centuries. His teaching on a cosmic struggle between good and evil later touched Jewish and Christian thought.
1070 BC–350 AD The kingdom of Kush Africa
A Nubian power on the upper Nile that ruled Egypt itself as its twenty-fifth dynasty.
776 BC First recorded Olympiad Greece
The traditional starting point of Greek historical chronology.
753 BC Traditional founding of Rome Rome
The legendary date of Rome's founding, later used as the anchor of the Roman calendar.
745 BC–609 BC Neo-Assyrian empire at its height Mesopotamia
Assyria dominated the Near East, deporting conquered populations as policy, including the northern kingdom of Israel.
620 BC–560 BC Coinage invented in Lydia Anatolia
Stamped electrum coins of guaranteed weight, an idea that spread across the ancient world within a century.

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