Fa­ther, for­give, the Sav­ior said,
They know not what they do;
His heart was moved when thus He prayed
For me, my friends, and you.

He saw, that as the Jews abused
And cru­ci­fied His flesh,
So He, by us, would be re­fused,
And cru­ci­fied afresh.

Through love of sin, we long were prone
To act as Sa­tan bid;
But now, with grief and shame we own,
We knew not what we did.

We knew not the de­sert of sin,
Nor whom we thus de­fied;
Nor where our guil­ty souls had been,
If Je­sus had not died.

We knew not what a law we broke,
How ho­ly, just and pure!
Nor what a God we dared pro­voke,
But thought our­selves se­cure.

But Je­sus all our guilt fore­saw,
And shed His pre­cious blood
To satisfy the ho­ly law,
And make our peace with God.

My sin, dear Sav­ior, made Thee bleed,
Yet didst Thou pray for me!
I knew not what I did, in­deed,
When ig­norant of Thee.