O LORD, you have examined me,

O LORD, you have examined me, you know me through and through. My sitting, rising—all my thoughts afar are known to you.

My going out and lying down are plain before your view. Before I speak a word, O LORD, it is well known to you.

You hem me in—behind, before; you lay on me your hand. Such knowledge is too wonderful, too high to understand.

Where can I from your Spirit flee or from your presence go? If to the heavens, you are there, or in the depths below.

If I should take the wings of dawn and dwell beyond the sea, There also you would be my guide, your right hand holding me.

If I should say, “Surely the dark will hide me from your sight, When all the light surrounding me becomes as dark as night”—

Yet even darkness is not dark to you in any way; For darkness is as light to you, the night will shine like day.

For you, O LORD, created me; you wove me on your loom. My inmost being you have formed within my mother’s womb.

Because I’m wonderfully made, with awe your praise I tell; Your workmanship is marvellous, and this I know full well.

When in the secret place my frame was made before my birth, You saw my body yet unformed within the depths of earth.

And all the days that I should live, which you ordained for me, Were written in your book, O LORD, before they came to be.

O God, how precious are your thoughts! I scan them from afar; And as I seek to grasp them all, how numberless they are!

Were I to count them, they would be more than the grains of sand. When I awake, I am with you, still safe within your hand.

May God destroy all wicked men! Away, you men of blood! Your foes, with evil in their hearts, misuse your name, O God.

Do I not hate all those, O LORD, who your great name oppose? I cannot but abhor them all; I count them as my foes.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; my anxious thoughts survey. Show me what gives offence to you, and lead me in your way.