Psalms 51:3
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.
BSB
ASV
For I know my transgressions; And my sin is ever before me.
KJV
For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.
LETTER 122.3 (420)
Psalm 50 [51] shows the complete repentance of a sinner when David, who had gone into Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite and was rebuked by the prophet Nathan, said, "I have sinned." Immediately he deserved to hear "The Lord has removed your sin from you." For he, who had added homicide to adultery and was moved to tears, said, "God, have compassion on me according to your great pity, and according to the multitude of your mercies take away my iniquity."
For I acknowledge my transgressions. Here he sees the plurality and immense number of his sins, and makes open declaration of them. He seems to say, I make a full confession of them. Not that this is my plea in seeking forgiveness, but it is a clear evidence that I need mercy, and am utterly unable to look to any other quarter for help. My pleading guilty has barred me from any appeal against the sentence of justice: O Lord, I must cast myself on thy mercy, refuse me not, I pray thee. Thou hast made me willing to confess.
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
Proverbs 28:13He who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy.
leads to
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
When I kept silent, my bones became brittle from my groaning all day long.
if I have covered my transgressions like Adam by hiding my guilt in my heart,
I will get up and go back to my father and say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
Go, proclaim this message toward the north: ‘Return, O faithless Israel,’ declares the LORD. ‘I will no longer look on you with anger, for I am merciful,’ declares the LORD. ‘I will not be…
Through
Psalms 32:5Then I acknowledged my sin to You and did not hide my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and You forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah
leads to
He who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy.
Reached by 2 independent paths from here.
Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” “The LORD has taken away your sin,” Nathan replied. “You will not die.
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.
