Psalms 119:9
How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to Your word.
BSB
ASV
Wherewith shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy word.
KJV
Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk8
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
Psalms 119:11I have hidden Your word in my heart that I might not sin against You.
leads to
The law of his God is in his heart; his steps do not falter.
Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to…
I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your law is within my heart.”
Your words were found, and I ate them. Your words became my joy and my heart’s delight. For I bear Your name, O LORD God of Hosts.
But his delight is in the Law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night.
Through
2 Timothy 2:22Flee from youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, together with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
leads to
Beloved, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from the desires of the flesh, which war against your soul.
He must turn from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it.
Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a man can commit is outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.
Let us listen, then, to the master of precaution: "I said, I will pay attention to my ways"; that is, "I said to myself: in the silent biddings of my thoughts, I have enjoined on myself, that I should pay attention to my ways." Some ways there are that we ought to follow; others as to which we ought to pay attention. We must follow the ways of the Lord and pay attention to our own ways, lest they lead us into sin. One can pay attention if one is not hasty in speaking.
ב, BETH.--The Second Part. BETH. Wherewith shall a young man cleanse his way?.... Some think David means himself, and that he was a young man when he wrote this psalm; and which they think is confirmed by Psa 119:100; but neither of them seem conclusive; rather any young man is meant, and who is particularly mentioned, because young men are liable to sins and snares, to carnal lusts and sensual pleasures, which are of a defiling nature.
"Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?" How shall he become and remain practically holy? He is but a young man, full of hot passions, and poor in knowledge and experience; how shall he get right, and keep right? Never was there a more important question for any man; never was there a fitter time for asking it than at the commencement of life. It is by no means an easy task which the prudent young man sets before him.
