Behind and before you encircle me and rest your hand upon me.

1 O LORD, you have probed me, you know me:

2 you know when I sit and stand; you understand my thoughts from afar.

3 my travels and my rest you mark; with all my ways you are familiar.

4 Even before a word is on my tongue, LORD, you know it all.

5 Behind and before you encircle me and rest your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is beyond me, far too lofty for me to reach.

7 Where can I hide from your spirit? From your presence, where can I flee?

8 If I ascend to the heavens, you are there; if I lie down in Sheol, you are there too.

9 If I fly with the wings of dawn and alight beyond the sea,

10 Even there your hand will guide me, your right hand hold me fast.

11 If I say, "Surely darkness shall hide me, and night shall be my light" --

12 Darkness is not dark for you, and night shines as the day. Darkness and light are but one.

13 You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother's womb.

14 I praise you, so wonderfully you made me; wonderful are your works! My very self you knew;

15 my bones were not hidden from you, When I was being made in secret, fashioned as in the depths of the earth.

16 Your eyes foresaw my actions; in your book all are written down; my days were shaped, before one came to be.

17 How precious to me are your designs, O God; how vast the sum of them!

18 Were I to count, they would outnumber the sands; to finish, I would need eternity.

(Psalm 139:1b:18, NAB)