Comfort, Comfort, You My People
Words: by Johann G. Olearius, 1671, trans. Catherine Winkworth, 1863 alt.
Tune: PSALM 42, Louis Bourgeois, Geneva Psalter, 1551
Comfort, comfort you my people,
Tell of peace, thus says our God;
Comfort those who sit in darkness;
bowed beneath oppression's load.
Speak you to Jerusalem
Of the peace that waits for them;
Tell them that their sins I cover,
And their warfare now is over.
For the herald's voice is calling
In the desert far and near,
Bidding us to make repentance,
Since the kingdom now is here.
O that warning cry obey!
Now prepare for God a way!
Let the valleys rise in meeting,
And the hills bow down in greeting.
Make you straight what long was crooked,
Make the rougher places plain:
Let your hearts be true and humble,
As befits God's holy reign,
For the glory of the Lord
Now o'er the earth is shed abroad,
And all flesh shall see the token
That God's word is never broken.
Comfort, Comfort, You My People