The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.
Parallel translations
- WEB The fear of Yahweh is clean, enduring forever. Yahweh’s ordinances are true, and righteous altogether.
- BSB The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever; the judgments of the LORD are true, being altogether righteous.
- NKJV The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
- NASB The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the Lord are true; they are righteous altogether.
- NLT Reverence for the Lord is pure, lasting forever. The laws of the Lord are true; each one is 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
The fear of the Lord is clean and everlasting; his judgments are true and altogether righteous. God's Word and worship are pure and enduring.
Overview
David includes 'the fear of Yahweh', reverent devotion shaped by God's Word, as itself clean and eternal, and affirms that God's ordinances are entirely just. This completes a sixfold praise of Scripture's perfections (vv. 7-9). The flawless righteousness of God's law both reveals his holy character and exposes our need for the righteousness found in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 33
- 1 Sam 12:24Only fear the LORD, and serve him in truth with all your heart: for consider how great things he hath done for you.
- Ps 119:142Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and thy law is the truth.
- Ps 119:137–138Righteous art thou, O LORD, and upright are thy judgments.
- Ps 119:1Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the LORD.
- Ps 34:11–14Come, ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the LORD.
- Ps 115:13He will bless them that fear the LORD, both small and great.
- Ps 111:10The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever.
- Rev 15:3And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.
- Rev 16:7And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.
- 1 Kgs 18:12And it shall come to pass, as soon as I am gone from thee, that the Spirit of the LORD shall carry thee whither I know not; and so when I come and tell Ahab, and he cannot find thee, he shall slay me: but I thy servant fear the LORD from my youth.
- Deut 4:8And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?
- Ps 10:5His ways are always grievous; thy judgments are far above out of his sight: as for all his enemies, he puffeth at them.
- Gen 42:18And Joseph said unto them the third day, This do, and live; for I fear God:
- Ps 72:1–2Give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king’s son.
- Isa 26:8Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O LORD, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee.
- Exod 21:1Now these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them.
- Ps 119:7I will praise thee with uprightness of heart, when I shall have learned thy righteous judgments.
- Rom 2:2But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things.
- Gen 22:12And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.
- Rev 19:2For true and righteous are his judgments: for he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand.
- Ps 36:1The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes.
- Neh 5:15But the former governors that had been before me were chargeable unto the people, and had taken of them bread and wine, beside forty shekels of silver; yea, even their servants bare rule over the people: but so did not I, because of the fear of God.
- Ps 119:106I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep thy righteous judgments.
- 1 Kgs 18:3–4And Ahab called Obadiah, which was the governor of his house. (Now Obadiah feared the LORD greatly:
- Ps 36:6Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep: O LORD, thou preservest man and beast.
- Rom 3:10–18As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
- Acts 10:22And they said, Cornelius the centurion, a just man, and one that feareth God, and of good report among all the nation of the Jews, was warned from God by an holy angel to send for thee into his house, and to hear words of thee.
- Ps 119:62At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto thee because of thy righteous judgments.
- Rom 11:22Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.
- Ps 119:39Turn away my reproach which I fear: for thy judgments are good.
- Prov 8:13The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.
- Ps 147:19He sheweth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel.
- Ps 119:75I know, O LORD, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me.
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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 19:9 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
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