When up­on the rag­ing wa­ters,
In the dark and stor­my night,
The dis­ci­ples hard were toil­ing,
Weary with the los­ing fight;
When their hearts were filled with ter­ror,
And their fears would not be laid,
Then the voice of Je­sus cheered them:
It is I, be not afraid!

When the storms of life as­sail us,
Billows rise on ev­ery hand,
When the wind’s dis­cord­ant shriek­ing
Echoes far o’er sea and land;
When the ene­mies have ga­thered
And their worst at­tacks have made;
Then our Sav­ior’s voice sus­tains us:
It is I, be not afraid!

When we seem to walk in dark­ness,
Threatened by the pow­ers of hell,
When we think no ray of mer­cy
Can the hea­vy gloom dis­pel;
When the fear­ful hand of sor­row
Like a pall on us is laid,
Jesus’ voice sounds thro’ the dark­ness:
It is I, be not afraid!

Ah, what we re­gard as dan­ger
Often is but fan­cy wrought,
And our fool­ish dread of dark­ness
Specters sees where there is naught;
We for­get our Sav­ior’s pro­mise,
Which so so­lemn­ly He made,
When He bids us cease our wor­ry:
It is I, be not afraid!

When at last our path­way brings us
To the vale that leads to death,
When the dark­ness soon en­folds us
And we feeb­ly gasp for breath,
Yet our hearts their trust will strength­en,
As we en­ter in death’s shade,
For our Sav­ior’s voice will cheer us:
It is I, be not afraid!