While Justice waves her venge­ful hand
Tremendous o’er a guil­ty land,
Almighty God, Thy aw­ful pow­er,
With fear and trem­bling, we adore.

Where shall we fly, but to Thy feet?
Our on­ly re­fuge is Thy seat;
Thy seat, where po­tent mer­cy pleads,
And holds Thy thun­der from our heads.

While peace and plen­ty blessed our days,
Where was the trib­ute of Thy praise?
Ungrateful race! How have we spent
The bless­ings which Thy good­ness lent?

Pale fa­mine now, and wast­ing war,
With threat­en­ing frown Thy wrath de­clare;
But war and fa­mine are Thy slaves,
Nor can de­stroy when mer­cy saves.

Look down, O Lord, with pi­ty­ing eye,
Though loud our crimes for ven­geance cry,
Let mercy’s ten­der voice pre­vail,
Nor let Thy long suf­fer­ing pa­tience fail.

Encouraged by Thy sac­red Word,
May we not plead the blest re­cord,
That when a hum­ble na­tion mourns,
Thy ris­ing wrath to pi­ty turns.

O let Thy so­ver­eign grace im­part
Contrition to each roc­ky heart,
And bid sin­cere re­pent­ance flow,
A ge­ner­al, un­dis­sem­bled woe.

Our arms, O God of ar­mies, bless,
Thy hand alone can give suc­cess;
And make our haugh­ty neigh­bors know
That Hea­ven pro­tects us from our foe.

Fair smil­ing peace again re­store,
With plen­ty bless the pin­ing poor,
And may a hap­py, thank­ful land
Obedient own Thy guard­ian hand.