3-4 I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous,
    your handmade sky-jewelry,
Moon and stars mounted in their settings.
    Then I look at my micro-self and wonder,
Why do you bother with us?
    Why take a second look our way?

5-8 Yet we’ve so narrowly missed being gods,
    bright with Eden’s dawn light.
You put us in charge of your handcrafted world,
    repeated to us your Genesis-charge,
Made us stewards of sheep and cattle,
    even animals out in the wild,
Birds flying and fish swimming,
    whales singing in the ocean deeps.

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When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—
    the moon and the stars you set in place—
what are mere mortals that you should think about them,
    human beings that you should care for them?[a]
Yet you made them only a little lower than God[b]
    and crowned them[c] with glory and honor.

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Footnotes

  1. 8:4 Hebrew what is man that you should think of him, / the son of man that you should care for him?
  2. 8:5a Or Yet you made them only a little lower than the angels; Hebrew reads Yet you made him [i.e., man] a little lower than Elohim.
  3. 8:5b Hebrew him [i.e., man]; similarly in 8:6.

When I consider your heavens,(A)
    the work of your fingers,(B)
the moon and the stars,(C)
    which you have set in place,
what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?[a](D)

You have made them[b] a little lower than the angels[c](E)
    and crowned them[d] with glory and honor.(F)

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Footnotes

  1. Psalm 8:4 Or what is a human being that you are mindful of him, / a son of man that you care for him?
  2. Psalm 8:5 Or him
  3. Psalm 8:5 Or than God
  4. Psalm 8:5 Or him