Where Can I Go from Your Spirit?

For the choir director. Of David. A Psalm.

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

2You know [†]when I sit down and [†]when I rise up;

You understand my thought from afar.

3You [†]scrutinize my [†]path and my lying down,

And are intimately acquainted with all my ways.

4[†]Even before there is a word on my tongue,

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.

7Where 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.

13For You formed my [†]inward parts;

You wove me in my mother’s womb.

14I will give thanks to You, for [†]I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

Wonderful are Your works,

And my soul knows it very well.

15My [†]frame was not hidden from You,

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.

17How 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.

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

O men of bloodshed, depart from me.

20For they speak [†]against You wickedly,

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.

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

Try me and know my anxious thoughts;

24And see if there be any [†]hurtful way in me,

And lead me in the everlasting way.