How Firm a Foundation
How firm a foun-da-tion, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His ex-cel-lent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
To you who for re-fuge to Je-sus have fled?
"Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dis-mayed,
For I am thy God and will still give thee aid;
I'll strength-en and help thee, and cause thee to stand
Up-held by my right-eous, om-ni-po-tent hand.
"When through the deep wa-ters I call thee to go,
The riv-ers of woe shall not thee o-ver-flow;
For I will be with thee, thy trou-bles to bless,
And sanc-ti-fy to thee thy deep-est dis-tress.
"When through fier-y tri-als thy path-ways shall lie,
My grace, all suf-fi-cient, shall be thy sup-ply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only de-sign
Thy dross to con-sume, and thy gold to re-fine.
"The soul that on Je-sus still leans for re-pose,
I will not, I will not de-sert to its foes;
That soul, though all hell should en-dea-vor to shake,
I'll ne-ver, no ne-ver, no ne-ver for-sake."
"E-ven down to old age all my peo-ple shall prove
My sov-ereign, e-ter-nal, un-change-a-ble love;
And when hoar-y hairs shall their tem-ples a-dorn,
Like lambs they shall still in my bos-om be borne."
In every con-di-tion, in sick-ness, in health;
In pov-er-ty's vale, or a-boun-ding in wealth;
At home and a-broad, on the land, on the sea,
As thy days may de-mand, shall thy strength ev-er be.