If You, O LORD, kept track of iniquities, then who, O Lord, could stand?
Parallel translations
- WEB If you, Yah, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand?
- KJV If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?
- NKJV If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?
- NASB If You, Lord, were to keep account of guilty deeds, Lord, who could stand?
- NLT Lord, if you kept a record of our sins, who, O Lord, could ever survive?
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
If God kept a record of sins, no one could stand before Him. It confronts every person with the reality that all are guilty before a holy God.
Overview
The psalmist asks who could survive if the Lord marked every iniquity, acknowledging universal guilt before God. No human stands on his own righteousness. This drives the reader to the only remedy, the forgiveness ultimately provided through Christ's atoning death.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Ps 143:2Do not bring Your servant into judgment, for no one alive is righteous before You.
- Ps 76:7You alone are to be feared. When You are angry, who can stand before You?
- Rom 3:20–24Therefore no one will be justified in His sight by works of the law. For the law merely brings awareness of sin.
- John 8:7–9When they continued to question Him, He straightened up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her.”
- Rev 6:17For the great day of Their wrath has come, and who is able to withstand it?”
- Job 10:14If I sinned, You would take note, and would not acquit me of my iniquity.
- Nah 1:6Who can withstand His indignation? Who can endure His burning anger? His wrath is poured out like fire; even rocks are shattered before Him.
- Mal 3:2But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He will be like a refiner’s fire, like a launderer’s soap.
- Job 15:14What is man, that he should be pure, or one born of woman, that he should be righteous?
- Job 9:20Even if I were righteous, my mouth would condemn me; if I were blameless, it would declare me guilty.
- Isa 53:6We all like sheep have gone astray, each one has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.
- Job 9:2–3“Yes, I know that it is so, but how can a mortal be righteous before God?
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 130:3 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.