Judas did first himself betray

Verse 1
Judas did first himself betray,
Or with his utmost power and art
Satan had never forc’d his way
Into the perjur’d traitor’s heart:
The miser sold himself to sin,
And avarice let the murtherer in.

Verse 2
Money! the direful love of thee,
The root of every evil still,
Springs up in deeds of perfidy;
For thee we fawn, betray, and kill,
And churchmen sell, like him of old,
Their Master and their souls for gold.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘The devil having now put it into the heart of Judas to betray him.’—[John 13,] v. 2." This hymn appears in the 1763-64 manuscript “MS John.” This manuscript is part of the collection of the Methodist Archive and Research Centre in The John Rylands Library, The University of Manchester (accession number MA 1977/573, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 3). Accessed through the website of The Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition, Duke Divinity School. Published in S.T. Kimbrough Jr. and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), page 257.
Publishing: Public Domain