Author: Charles Wesley Meter: 8.8.8.8 Appears in 2 hymnals Lyrics: 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:
2 Worthy in her great Savior’s worth
’Till Sion doth illustrious shine,
And as a burning lamp goes forth
The blaze of righteousness divine.
3 Thy righteousness the world shall see,
The Gentiles on thy beauty gaze,
And all the kings of earth agree
In wondering at thy glorious grace.
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.
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.
6 Outcast of God and man no more,
No more forsaken and forlorn,
Thy desolate estate is o’er,
For God shall comfort all that mourn.
7 The widowed Church shall married be,
And soon a numerous offspring bear:
Thy every son shall comfort thee,
And cherish with a husband’s care.
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.
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.
10 The joy that swells a bridegroom’s breast,
When glorying o’er his long-sought bride,
Shall swell Thy God, of thee possessed,
Of thee, for whom He lived and died.
11 Prophets to thee thy Lord hath raised,
O holy city of our God,
Hath on thy walls His watchmen placed,
And with a trumpet-voice endued.
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.
13 Call on Him now, ye watchmen, call,
Cry, ye remembrancers divine,
Give Him no rest, who died for all,
Till in all His pure worship join:
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.
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.
16 Satan, the world, and sin too long
Have robbed the children of their bread,
Poor laboring souls, they suffered wrong,
Nor saw their legal toil succeed.
17 They sowed the ground, and did not reap,
Planted, and not drink the wine:
But I will comfort all that weep,
And fill the poor with food divine.
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.
19 Surely the faithful see at last
The labor of their hands shall eat,
Shall praise the Lord, and more than taste
The heavenly everlasting meat.
20 They all shall sit beneath the vine,
In calm inviolable peace,
And drink within My courts the wine,
My courts of perfect holiness.
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.
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.
23 Lift up for all mankind to see
The standard of their dying God,
And point them to the shameful tree,
The cross all stained with hallowed blood.
24 The Lord hath glorified His grace,
Throughout the earth proclaimed His Son;
Say ye to all the sinful race,
He died for all your sins t’atone.
25 Sion, thy suffering God behold,
Thy Savior and salvation, too:
He comes, He comes, so long foretold,
Clothed in a vest of bloody hue.
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.
27 He fills whom first He hath prepared,
With Him the perfect grace is given,
Himself is here their great reward,
Their future and their present Heaven.
28 They now the holy people named,
Their glorious title shall express,
From all iniquity redeemed,
Filled with the Lord their righteousness.
29 A chosen, saved, peculiar race,
Sion, with all thy sons thou art,
Elect thro’ sanctifying grace,
Perfect in love, and pure in heart.
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. Used With Tune: ABENDS Text Sources: Hymns and Sacred Poems, Vol. 1, 1749
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