Psalm 39:1-13
To the director of Je·duʹthun.*+ A melody of David.
39 I said: “I will guard my ways+To keep from sinning with my tongue.+I will set a muzzle as a guard to my own mouth,+As long as anyone wicked is in front of me.”+
2 I became speechless with silence;+I kept quiet from what is good,+And my being pained was ostracized.
3 My heart grew hot inside me;+During my sighing the fire kept burning.I spoke with my tongue:
4 “Cause me, O Jehovah, to know my end,+And the measure of my days—what it is,+That I may know how transient I am.+
5 Look! You have made my days just a few;*+And my life’s duration is as nothing in front of you.+Surely every earthling man,* though standing firm, is nothing but an exhalation.+ Seʹlah.
6 Surely in a semblance man* walks about.+Surely they are boisterous in vain.+One piles up things and does not know who will be gathering them.+
7 And now for what have I hoped, O Jehovah?*My expectation is toward you.+
8 From all my transgressions deliver me.+Do not set me as a reproach of the senseless one.+
9 I kept speechless;+ I could not open my mouth,+For you yourself acted.+
10 Remove from off me your plague.+Due to the hostility of your hand I myself have come to an end.+
11 By reproofs against error you have corrected man,*+And you consume his desirable things just as a moth+ does.Surely every earthling man* is an exhalation.+ Seʹlah.
12 Do hear my prayer, O Jehovah,And to my cry for help do give ear.+At my tears do not keep silent.+For I am but an alien resident with you,+A settler the same as all my forefathers.+
13 Look away from me, that I may brighten up+Before I go away and I am not.”+
Footnotes
^ “Jeduthun.” An unexplained term.
^ Lit., “just handbreadths.”
^ “Earthling man.” Heb., ʼa·dhamʹ.
^ “Man.” Heb., ʼish.
^ One of 134 scribal changes from YHWH to ʼAdho·naiʹ. See App 1B.
^ “Earthling man.” Heb., ʼa·dhamʹ.
^ “Man.” Heb., ʼish.
