Lord, when Thine Is­rael we sur­vey,
We in their crimes dis­cern our own;
And if Thou turn our pray­er away,
Our mi­se­ry must, like theirs, be known.

To us Thy pro­phets have been sent
With words of ter­ror and of love;
But nor the ven­geance, nor the grace,
Ten thou­sand stub­born hearts will move.

Our eyes are blind, and deaf our ears;
Our hearts are hard­ened in­to stone;
As we would bar Thy mer­cy out,
And leave a way for wrath alone.

Justly our God might give us up
To plague and fa­mine and the sword;
Till towns and ci­ties, rich and fair,
Lay de­so­late with­out a Lord.

O’er bleed­ing wounds of slaugh­tered friends
Rivers of help­less grief might flow,
Till the fierce con­quer­or’s haugh­ty rage
Dragged us to chains and slaugh­ter, too.

But spare a na­tion long Thine own,
And show new mi­ra­cles of grace,
’Tis Thine to heal the deaf and blind,
And wake the dead to life and praise.