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Psalm 139

1  O Lord, you have searched me out and known me; ♦︎
   you know my sitting down and my rising up;
      you discern my thoughts from afar.
2  You mark out my journeys and my resting place ♦︎
   and are acquainted with all my ways.
3  For there is not a word on my tongue, ♦︎
   but you, O Lord, know it altogether.
4  You encompass me behind and before ♦︎
   and lay your hand upon me.
5  Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, ♦︎
   so high that I cannot attain it.
6  Where can I go then from your spirit? ♦︎
   Or where can I flee from your presence?
7  If I climb up to heaven, you are there; ♦︎
   if I make the grave my bed, you are there also.
8  If I take the wings of the morning ♦︎
   and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
9  Even there your hand shall lead me, ♦︎
   your right hand hold me fast.
10  If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will cover me ♦︎
   and the light around me turn to night,’
11  Even darkness is no darkness with you;
      the night is as clear as the day; ♦︎
   darkness and light to you are both alike.
12  For you yourself created my inmost parts; ♦︎
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
13  I thank you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; ♦︎
   marvellous are your works, my soul knows well.
14  My frame was not hidden from you, ♦︎
   when I was made in secret
      and woven in the depths of the earth.
15  Your eyes beheld my form, as yet unfinished; ♦︎
   already in your book were all my members written,
16  As day by day they were fashioned ♦︎
   when as yet there was none of them.
17  How deep are your counsels to me, O God! ♦︎
   How great is the sum of them!
18  If I count them, they are more in number than the sand, ♦︎
   and at the end, I am still in your presence.

21 ^*Jehoash^* was seven years old when he began to reign.

The Temple Repaired

12In the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash began to reign; he reigned for forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah of Beer-sheba. ²Jehoash did what was right in the sight of the Lord all his days, because the priest Jehoiada instructed him. ³Nevertheless, the high places were not taken away; the people continued to sacrifice and make offerings on the high places.

4 Jehoash said to the priests, ‘All the money offered as sacred donations that is brought into the house of the Lord, the money for which each person is assessed—the money from the assessment of persons—and the money from the voluntary offerings brought into the house of the Lord, ⁵let the priests receive from each of the donors; and let them repair the house wherever any need of repairs is discovered.’ ⁶But by the twenty-third year of King Jehoash the priests had made no repairs to the house. ⁷Therefore King Jehoash summoned the priest Jehoiada with the other priests and said to them, ‘Why are you not repairing the house? Now therefore do not accept any more money from your donors but hand it over for the repair of the house.’ ⁸So the priests agreed that they would neither accept more money from the people nor repair the house.

9 Then the priest Jehoiada took a chest, made a hole in its lid, and set it beside the altar on the right side as one entered the house of the Lord; the priests who guarded the threshold put in it all the money that was brought into the house of the Lord. ¹⁰Whenever they saw that there was a great deal of money in the chest, the king’s secretary and the high priest went up, counted the money that was found in the house of the Lord, and tied it up in bags. ¹¹They would give the money that was weighed out into the hands of the workers who had the oversight of the house of the Lord; then they paid it out to the carpenters and the builders who worked on the house of the Lord, ¹²to the masons and the stonecutters, as well as to buy timber and quarried stone for making repairs on the house of the Lord, as well as for any outlay for repairs of the house. ¹³But for the house of the Lord no basins of silver, snuffers, bowls, trumpets, or any vessels of gold, or of silver, were made from the money that was brought into the house of the Lord, ¹⁴for that was given to the workers who were repairing the house of the Lord with it. ¹⁵They did not ask for an account from those into whose hand they delivered the money to pay out to the workers, for they dealt honestly. ¹⁶The money from the guilt-offerings and the money from the sin-offerings was not brought into the house of the Lord; it belonged to the priests.

Warning to Rich Oppressors

5Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. ²Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. ³Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure^* for the last days. ⁴Listen! The wages of the labourers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. ⁵You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts on a day of slaughter. ⁶You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you.