Psalms 51

World English Bible 89 include this book

1 Have mercy on me, God, according to your loving kindness. According to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.

2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin.

3 For I know my transgressions. My sin is constantly before me.

4 Against you, and you only, I have sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight, so you may be proved right when you speak, and justified when you judge.

5 Behold, I was born in iniquity. My mother conceived me in sin.

6 Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts. You teach me wisdom in the inmost place.

7 Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean. Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

8 Let me hear joy and gladness, that the bones which you have broken may rejoice.

9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all of my iniquities.

10 Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me.

11 Don’t throw me from your presence, and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me.

12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation. Uphold me with a willing spirit.

13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways. Sinners will be converted to you.

14 Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, the God of my salvation. My tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.

15 Lord, open my lips. My mouth will declare your praise.

16 For you don’t delight in sacrifice, or else I would give it. You have no pleasure in burnt offering.

17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. O God, you will not despise a broken and contrite heart.

18 Do well in your good pleasure to Zion. Build the walls of Jerusalem.

19 Then you will delight in the sacrifices of righteousness, in burnt offerings and in whole burnt offerings. Then they will offer bulls on your altar.

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2 places named in this chapter.

Where this was written

Jerusalem traditional Assembled for temple worship over several centuries.

When this was written

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.

Elsewhere in the world

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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