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Wednesday, April 30th, 2025
the Second Week after Easter
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Read the Bible

Revised Standard Version

Psalms 18:21

For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- The Topic Concordance - Obedience;   Recompense/restitution;   Rendering;   Uprightness;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Steadfastness;  

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Fire;   Psalms, the Book of;   Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Way;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Apocalyptic Literature;   David;   English Versions;   Greek Versions of Ot;   Jonah;   Psalms;   Salvation, Saviour;   Sin;   Text, Versions, and Languages of Ot;   A Dictionary of Early Christian Biography - Paulinus, Bishop of Nola;   People's Dictionary of the Bible - David;   Psalms the book of;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Bible, the;   Justice;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
For I have kept the ways of the Lordand have not turned from my God to wickedness.
Hebrew Names Version
For I have kept the ways of the LORD, And have not wickedly departed from my God.
King James Version
For I have kept the ways of the Lord , and have not wickedly departed from my God.
English Standard Version
For I have kept the ways of the Lord , and have not wickedly departed from my God.
New Century Version
I have followed the ways of the Lord ; I have not done evil by turning away from my God.
New English Translation
For I have obeyed the Lord 's commands; I have not rebelled against my God.
Amplified Bible
For I have kept the ways of the LORD, And have not wickedly departed from my God.
New American Standard Bible
For I have kept the ways of the LORD, And have not acted wickedly against my God.
World English Bible
For I have kept the ways of Yahweh, And have not wickedly departed from my God.
Geneva Bible (1587)
Because I kept the wayes of the Lord, and did not wickedly against my God.
Legacy Standard Bible
For I have kept the ways of Yahweh,And have not wickedly departed from my God.
Berean Standard Bible
For I have kept the ways of the LORD and have not wickedly departed from my God.
Contemporary English Version
I do what you want and never turn to do evil.
Complete Jewish Bible
Adonai rewarded me for my uprightness, he repaid me because my hands were clean.
Darby Translation
For I have kept the ways of Jehovah, and have not wickedly departed from my God.
Easy-to-Read Version
The Lord did this because I have obeyed him. I have not turned against my God.
George Lamsa Translation
For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not revolted against my God.
Good News Translation
I have obeyed the law of the Lord ; I have not turned away from my God.
Lexham English Bible
Because I have kept the ways of Yahweh, and have not acted wickedly against my God,
Literal Translation
For I have kept the ways of Jehovah, and have not wickedly departed from my God.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
For I haue kepte the wayes of the LORDE, & haue not behaued myself wickedly agaynst my God.
American Standard Version
For I have kept the ways of Jehovah, And have not wickedly departed from my God.
Bible in Basic English
For I have kept the ways of the Lord; I have not been turned away in sin from my God.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands hath He recompensed me.
King James Version (1611)
For I haue kept the wayes of the Lord, and haue not wickedly departed from my God.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Because I had kept the wayes of God: and had not wickedly shronke from my God.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
For I have kept the way of the Lord and have not wickedly departed from my God.
English Revised Version
For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
And the Lord schal yelde to me bi my riytfulnesse; and he schal yelde to me bi the clennesse of myn hondis.
Update Bible Version
For I have kept the ways of Yahweh, And have not wickedly departed from my God.
Webster's Bible Translation
For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God.
New King James Version
For I have kept the ways of the LORD, And have not wickedly departed from my God.
New Living Translation
For I have kept the ways of the Lord ; I have not turned from my God to follow evil.
New Life Bible
For I have kept the ways of the Lord. And I have not sinned by turning from my God.
New Revised Standard
For I have kept the ways of the Lord , and have not wickedly departed from my God.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
For I had kept the ways of Yahweh, and not broken away from my God;
Douay-Rheims Bible
(17-22) Because I have kept the ways of the Lord; and have not done wickedly against my God.
Young's Literal Translation
For I have kept the ways of Jehovah, And have not done wickedly against my God.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
For I have kept the ways of the Lord , And have not wickedly departed from my God.

Contextual Overview

20 The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he recompensed me. 21 For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God. 22 For all his ordinances were before me, and his statutes I did not put away from me. 23 I was blameless before him, and I kept myself from guilt. 24 Therefore the LORD has recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight. 25 With the loyal thou dost show thyself loyal; with the blameless man thou dost show thyself blameless; 26 with the pure thou dost show thyself pure; and with the crooked thou dost show thyself perverse. 27 For thou dost deliver a humble people; but the haughty eyes thou dost bring down. 28 Yea, thou dost light my lamp; the LORD my God lightens my darkness.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

For I: Psalms 17:4, Psalms 26:1, Psalms 119:10, Psalms 119:11, Acts 24:16, 1 Thessalonians 2:10

have not: Psalms 119:102, 1 Samuel 15:11, 1 John 2:19

Reciprocal: Deuteronomy 26:13 - I have not 1 Kings 18:13 - what I did 2 Chronicles 17:6 - in the ways 2 Chronicles 20:32 - departed not Isaiah 59:13 - departing Jeremiah 17:5 - whose Daniel 9:5 - departing Malachi 2:8 - ye are Hebrews 3:12 - in 2 Peter 2:2 - ways

Cross-References

Genesis 11:5
And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men had built.
Genesis 11:7
Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech."
Genesis 18:1
And the LORD appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day.
Genesis 18:24
Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; wilt thou then destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it?
Exodus 3:8
and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Per'izzites, the Hivites, and the Jeb'usites.
Exodus 33:5
For the LORD had said to Moses, "Say to the people of Israel, 'You are a stiff-necked people; if for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you. So now put off your ornaments from you, that I may know what to do with you.'"
Deuteronomy 8:2
And you shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments, or not.
Deuteronomy 13:3
you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer of dreams; for the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
Joshua 22:22
"The Mighty One, God, the LORD! The Mighty One, God, the LORD! He knows; and let Israel itself know! If it was in rebellion or in breach of faith toward the LORD, spare us not today
Job 34:22
There is no gloom or deep darkness where evildoers may hide themselves.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

For I have kept the ways of the Lord,.... Not those which the Lord himself walks in, his ways of providence, or of grace; though these are and should be taken notice of and observed by good men, as the word y used will bear to be rendered; but the ways which he has prescribed and directed men to walk in, the ways of his commandments, in which they should go; these were, in some measure, kept by David, who often, in the hundred nineteenth psalm speaks of his keeping the testimonies and statutes, and commandments of the Lord; as they are by good men, with some degree of pleasure, they take delight to walk in them; and with some degree of constancy, they keep walking in them, without turning to the right hand or the left, though solicited to it; but yet not perfectly, for they have many a slip and fall in them; wherefore this cannot be a reason of their being rewarded according to their righteousness: in strict justice, the words better agree with Christ, who kept the law of God perfectly, did his will completely; he came from heaven to do it; it was his meat and drink to accomplish it; and he always did the things which pleased his father, wherefore he rewarded him;

and have not wickedly departed from my God; which was, in some sense, true of David; not as by disbelieving the power and providence, the promises, truth, and faithfulness of God, and his covenant interest in him; which to do would have been a wicked departure from God; see Hebrews 3:12; nor by forsaking the house and worship of God; though he was driven from thence by wicked men, yet sore against his will, and which during his exile he frequently laments and complains of; nor by sinning wilfully and presumptuously, only through error, inadvertency, infirmity, and temptation: but when it is observed, how much unbelief, which is a partial departing from the living God, and how many there are that neglect private and public worship, and what a proneness there is to sin and wickedness, and how much there is of the will in sinful actions, in the best of men; it is right and best to understand this of Christ, who never was guilty of sin, nor committed any wickedness in departing from God in the least: as man, God was his God, and he always believed his interest in him, and claimed it even when he forsook him on the cross; nor did he quit his service, desert his cause, nor depart from the work and business he enjoined him, till it was finished.

y שמרתי "observaveram", Tigurine version, Vatablus; "observo", Junius Tremellius "observavi", Gejerus, Michaelis; so Ainsworth.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For I have kept the ways of the Lord - I have obeyed his laws. I have not so violated the laws which God has given to regulate my conduct with my fellow-men as to deserve to be treated by them as a guilty man.

And have not wickedly departed from my God - “I have not been a sinner from my God;” an apostate; an open violator of his law. The treatment which I have received, though it would be justly rendered to an open violator of law, is not that which I have merited from the hand of man.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Psalms 18:21. I have kept the ways of the Lord — I was neither an infidel nor a profligate; I trusted in God, and carefully observed all the ordinances of his religion.


 
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