Verse 1
For Sion’s sake I will not cease
In agony of prayer to cry,
No, never will I hold my peace,
’Till God proclaim salvation nigh:
Verse 2
Worthy in her great Saviour’s worth
’Till Sion doth illustrious shine,
And as a burning lamp goes forth
The blaze of righteousness divine.
Verse 3
Thy righteousness the world shall see,
The Gentiles on thy beauty gaze,
And all the kings of earth agree
In wond’ring at thy glorious grace.
Verse 4
Thy glorious grace what tongue can tell?
The Lord shall a new name impart,
Th’ unutterable name reveal,
And write it on his people’s heart.
Verse 5
Sion, for thee thy God shall care,
And claim thee as his just reward,
Thee for his crown of glory wear,
The royal diadem of thy Lord.
Verse 6
Outcast of God and man no more,
No more forsaken and forlorn,
Thy desolate estate is o’re,
For God shall comfort all that mourn.
Verse 7
The widow’d church shall married be,
And soon a num’rous offspring bear:
Thy every son shall comfort thee,
And cherish with a husband’s care.
Verse 8
Thy duteous sons to thee shall cleave,
The barren woman that keeps house,
Nor ever more the bosom leave
Of their dear mother and their spouse.
Verse 9
The Lord himself thy husband is,
He bought, and claims thee for his own,
Thy God delights to call thee his,
Flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone.
Verse 10
The joy that swells a bridegroom’s breast,
When glorying o’re his long-sought bride,
Shall swell thy God, of thee possest,
Of thee, for whom he liv’d and dy’d.
Verse 11
Prophets to thee thy Lord hath rais’d,
O holy city of our God,
Hath on thy walls his watchmen plac’d,
And with a trumpet-voice endued.
Verse 12
They cry, and never hold their peace,
His promise day and night they plead,
’Till God from all thy sins release,
And make thee like thy glorious head.
Verse 13
Call on him now, ye watchmen call,
Cry ye remembrancers divine,
Give him no rest, who died for all,
’Till all in his pure worship join:
Verse 14
’Till God appear the faithful God,
And make Jerusalem a praise,
And spread thro’ all the earth abroad,
And ’stablish her with perfect grace.
Verse 15
The Lord by his right-hand hath sworn,
The arm of his almighty power,
No more shalt thou to sin return,
Thy en’my shall no more devour.
Verse 16
Satan, the world, and sin too long
Have robb’d the children of their bread,
Poor lab’ring souls they suffer’d wrong,
Nor saw their legal toil succeed.
Verse 17
They sow’d the ground, and did not reap,
Planted, and did not drink the wine:
But I will comfort all that weep,
And fill the poor with food divine.
Verse 18
No more shall strange desires consume
Their holy, pure and constant joy,
The waster pride no more shall come,
Their gifts and graces to destroy.
Verse 19
Surely the faithful seed at last
The labour of their hands shall eat,
Shall praise the Lord, and more than taste
The heavenly everlasting meat.
Verse 20
They all shall sit beneath the vine,
In calm inviolable peace,
And drink within my courts the wine,
My courts of perfect holiness.
Verse 21
Go thro’ the gates (’tis God commands)
Workers with God, the charge obey,
Remove whate’er his work withstands,
Prepare, prepare his people’s way.
Verse 22
Their even course let nothing stop,
Cast up the way, the stones remove,
The high and holy way cast up,
The gospel-way of perfect love.
Verse 23
Lift up for all mankind to see
The standard of their dying God,
And point them to the shameful tree,
The cross all-stain’d with hallow’d blood.
Verse 24
The Lord hath glorified his grace,
Throughout the earth proclaim’d his Son,
Say ye to all the sinful race,
He died for all your sins t’ atone.
Verse 25
Sion, thy suffering God behold,
Thy Saviour and salvation too,
He comes, he comes, so long foretold,
Cloath’d in a vest of bloody hue.
Verse 26
Himself prepares his people’s hearts,
Breaks and binds up, and wounds and heals,
A mystic death, and life imparts,
Empties the full, the emptied fills.
Verse 27
He fills whom first he hath prepar’d,
With him the perfect grace is given,
Himself is here their great reward,
Their future and their present heaven.
Verse 28
They now the holy people nam’d,
Their glorious title shall express,
From all iniquity redeem’d,
Fill’d with the Lord their righteousness.
Verse 29
A chosen, sav’d, peculiar race,
Sion, with all thy sons thou art,
Elect thro’ sanctifying grace,
Perfect in love, and pure in heart.
Verse 30
A people glorious all within,
Now, only now, and not before,
Born from above thou canst not sin,
And God can never leave thee more.