Righteous are You, O LORD, and upright are Your judgments.
Parallel translations
- WEB You are righteous, Yahweh. Your judgments are upright.
- KJV Righteous art thou, O LORD, and upright are thy judgments.
- NKJV Righteous are You, O Lord, And upright are Your judgments.
- NASB ¶You are righteous, Lord, And Your judgments are right.
- NLT O Lord, you are righteous, and your regulations are fair.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God is righteous, and His judgments are upright. The Lord's character and His rulings are perfectly just.
Overview
Opening the TZADI stanza, the psalmist confesses the righteousness of God Himself and the uprightness of all His judgments. God's justice is rooted in His very nature, so His decisions are always right. This perfect righteousness is displayed supremely at the cross, where God is shown to be both just and the justifier of those who believe in Christ (Rom. 3:26; Deut. 32:4).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Ezra 9:15O LORD, God of Israel, You are righteous! For we remain this day as a remnant. Here we are before You in our guilt, though because of it no one can stand before You.”
- Jer 12:1Righteous are You, O LORD, when I plead before You. Yet about Your judgments I wish to contend with You: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?
- Ps 145:17The LORD is righteous in all His ways and kind in all His deeds.
- Dan 9:7To You, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but this day we are covered with shame—the men of Judah, the people of Jerusalem, and all Israel near and far, in all the countries to which You have driven us because of our unfaithfulness to You.
- Ps 99:4The mighty King loves justice. You have established equity; You have exercised justice and righteousness in Jacob.
- Dan 9:14Therefore the LORD has kept the calamity in store and brought it upon us. For the LORD our God is righteous in all He does; yet we have not obeyed His voice.
- Deut 32:4He is the Rock, His work is perfect; all His ways are just. A God of faithfulness without injustice, righteous and upright is He.
- Neh 9:33You are just in all that has befallen us, because You have acted faithfully, while we have acted wickedly.
- Rev 16:7And I heard the altar reply: “Yes, Lord God Almighty, true and just are Your judgments.”
- Ps 103:6The LORD executes righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.
- Rom 3:5–6But if our unrighteousness highlights the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unjust to inflict His wrath on us? I am speaking in human terms.
- Rev 15:3–4and they sang the song of God’s servant Moses and of the Lamb: “Great and wonderful are Your works, O Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, O King of the nations!
- Rev 19:2For His judgments are true and just. He has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality. He has avenged the blood of His servants that was poured out by her hand.”
- Rom 2:5But because of your hard and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
- Rom 9:14What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Certainly not!
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 119:137 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.