Let the world la­ment their dead,
As sor­row­ing with­out hope;
When a friend of ours is freed,
We cheer­ful­ly look up,
Cannot mur­mur or com­plain,
For our dead we can­not grieve,
Death to them, to us, is gain;
In Je­sus we be­lieve.

We be­lieve that Christ our head
For us re­signed His breath,
He was num­bered with the dead,
And dy­ing con­quered death;
Burst the bar­ri­ers of the tomb:
Death could Him no long­er keep,
He is the first-fruits be­come
Of those in Him that sleep.

God, who Him to life re­stored,
Shall all His mem­bers raise,
Bring them quick­ened with their Lord,
The child­ren of His grace.
We who then on earth re­main,
Shall not soon­er be brought home;
All the dead shall rise again
To meet the ge­ne­ral doom.

Jesus, faith­ful to His word,
Shall with a shout des­cend;
All Hea­ven’s host their glo­ri­ous Lord
Shall pom­pous­ly at­tend;
Christ shall come with dread­ful noise,
Lightnings swift, and thun­ders loud,
With the great arch­an­gel’s voice,
And with the trump of God.

First the dead in Christ shall rise;
Then we who yet re­main
Shall be caught up to the skies,
And see our Lord again;
We shall meet Him in the air,
All rapt up to Hea­ven shall be,
See, and love, and praise Him there
To all eter­ni­ty.

Who can tell the hap­pi­ness
This glo­ri­ous hope af­fords!
Joy un­ut­tered we pos­sess
In these re­viv­ing words:
Happy while on earth we breathe,
Mightier bliss or­dained to know,
Trampling up­on sin and death,
To the third Hea­ven we go.