Scripture Verse

Introduction

Origin of the Hymn

During those meet­ings, one of the sub­jects preached up­on was the New Birth. While pre­sent­ing the truth, en­forc­ing it by re­fer­ring to va­ri­ous pas­sag­es of Scrip­ture, Dr. Pen­te­cost quot­ed our Lord’s words to Ni­co­de­mus, Ve­ri­ly, ve­ri­ly, I say un­to thee, ye must be born again…

It oc­curred to me that by tak­ing the line Ve­ri­ly, ve­ri­ly, I say un­to thee, from the third verse, and put­ting it with the line, Ye must be born again, and by trans­fer­ring the word I from the mid­dle of the first line to the be­gin­ning, so it would read, I ve­ri­ly, ve­ri­ly, say un­to thee, Ye must be born again, those pas­sag­es would then fall in­to rhy­thm­ic­al form, and by the use of some re­pe­ti­tions could be made av­ail­able for a mu­sic­al set­ting, and al­so for a chor­us to the hymn, if some suit­able vers­es could be found…

I spoke to Rev­er­end…Sleep­er, one of the pas­tors of the ci­ty who some­times wrote hymns, of my im­pres­sion and asked him if he would write me some vers­es on the sub­ject. He act­ed at once on my sug­ges­tion and soon af­ter came to me with the hymn… Be­fore the meet­ings closed a mu­sic­al set­ting was made.

George Steb­bins, Mem­oirs and Rem­in­isc­enc­es