If you, Yah, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand?
Parallel translations
- KJV If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?
- BSB If You, O LORD, kept track of iniquities, then who, O Lord, could 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 143:2Don’t enter into judgment with your servant, for in your sight no man living is righteous.
- Ps 76:7You, even you, are to be feared. Who can stand in your sight when you are angry?
- Rom 3:20–24Because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight. For through the law comes the knowledge of sin.
- John 8:7–9But when they continued asking him, he looked up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw the first stone at her.”
- Rev 6:17for the great day of his wrath has come; and who is able to stand?”
- Job 10:14if I sin, then you mark me. You will not acquit me from my iniquity.
- Nah 1:6Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the fierceness of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken apart by him.
- Mal 3:2“But who can endure the day of his coming? And who will stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like launderer’s soap;
- Job 15:14What is man, that he should be clean? What is he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?
- Job 9:20Though I am righteous, my own mouth shall condemn me. Though I am blameless, it shall prove me perverse.
- Isa 53:6All we like sheep have gone astray. Everyone has turned to his own way; and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
- Job 9:2–3“Truly I know that it is so, but how can man be just with God?
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
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 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.