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So I let them go after the stubbornness of their hearts, that they might walk in their own counsels.
Psalms 81:12 · World English Bible
Parallel translations
  • KJV So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust: and they walked in their own counsels.
  • BSB So I gave them up to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.
  • NKJV So I gave them over to their own stubborn heart, To walk in their own counsels.
  • NASB “So I gave them over to the stubbornness of their heart, To walk by their own plans.
  • NLT So I let them follow their own stubborn desires, living according to their own ideas.

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

So God gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own counsels. Persistent rejection of God leads to the judgment of being abandoned to one's own way.

Overview

When Israel refused to listen, God's judgment was to let them have what they wanted, surrendering them to their own devices. This is a sobering form of divine wrath, paralleled in Romans 1:24-28 where God 'gives over' the willfully rebellious. It shows that resisting grace is no small thing but invites severe consequence.

Cross-references & the web

Cross-references · 11

  • Jer 7:24But they didn’t listen nor turn their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.
  • Rom 1:24Therefore God also gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to uncleanness, that their bodies should be dishonored among themselves,
  • Isa 30:1“Woe to the rebellious children”, says Yahweh, “who take counsel, but not from me; and who make an alliance, but not with my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin,
  • Acts 7:42But God turned, and gave them up to serve the army of the sky, as it is written in the book of the prophets, ‘Did you offer to me slain animals and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?
  • 2 Th 2:9–11even he whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,
  • Acts 14:16who in the generations gone by allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways.
  • Rom 1:26–27For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. For their women changed the natural function into that which is against nature.
  • Jer 44:16–17“As for the word that you have spoken to us in Yahweh’s name, we will not listen to you.
  • Job 8:4If your children have sinned against him, He has delivered them into the hand of their disobedience.
  • Gen 6:3Yahweh said, “My Spirit will not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; so his days will be one hundred twenty years.”
  • Exod 11:9Yahweh said to Moses, “Pharaoh won’t listen to you, that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.”

Themes, concepts, people & topics

Topics (4)

Resources, by level

Commentaries & study tools

  • VideoBibleProject — Psalms videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.

  • VideoWatch teaching on Psalms 81:12YouTube · Lay · Free

    Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.

  • CommentaryEnduring Word — verse-by-verseDavid Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.

  • CommentaryClassic commentaries for this verseBibleHub (20+ works) · Pastoral · Free

    Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.

  • CommentaryMatthew Henry on PsalmsMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical

    The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).

  • ReferenceInterlinear, lexicon & Strong'sBlue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free

    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 81:12 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.