Righteous, sin-av­eng­ing God,
To Thee what shall we say?
Dare we de­pre­cate the rod,
Or still for res­pite pray?
Thou hast giv’n our sin­ful land
A long­er, and a long­er space,
But we still Thy love with­stand,
And mock Thee to Thy face.

Thou in dan­ger’s dark­est hour
Didst on our side ap­pear,
Snatch us from the wast­ing power
Of war and Satan near:
Whom the winds and seas ob­ey,
Thou, Lord, Thy migh­ty arm didst show,
Chase the ali­en hosts away,
And stop th’in­vad­ing foe.

Not our pro­vi­dence or sword
Did us from ru­in save,
Our De­liv­er­er is the Lord,
Let Him the glo­ry have:
But alas, we have not feared
Thy power, or ren­dered Thee Thy due,
Have not hon­ored, or re­vered
A God we ne­ver knew.

Viler still, if that can be,
We have been in Thy sight,
Scorned to give the praise to Thee,
And robbed Thee of Thy right,
Wronged Thine in­ter­pos­ing grace,
Denied Thy pro­vi­den­tial care,
Hardened as th’Egypt­ian race
Thine ut­most plague to dare.

What can our de­struct­ion stop,
Or now re­verse our doom?
God the just must give us up,
And let the ru­in come:
Lo! He whets His glit­tering sword,
His hand doth hold of judg­ment take,
Rises the al­migh­ty Lord
A guil­ty land to shake!

O al­migh­ty Lord, we own
Thine aw­ful right­eous­ness,
Make in us Thy good­ness known,
Who all our sins con­fess,
We who trem­ble at the rod,
And meek­ly to the judg­ment bow,
O re­mem­ber us for good
Who sue for mer­cy now!