Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness

For this year’s Good Friday.

The words are a translation by John Wesley (1703-91) of a hymn written by Nicolaus Ludwig Graf von Zinzendorf (1700-60).

Jesus, thy blood and righteousness

my beauty are, my glorious dress;

’midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,

with joy shall I lift up my head.

Bold shall I stand in thy great day;

for who aught to my charge shall lay?

Fully absolved through these I am

from sin and fear, from guilt and shame.

When from the dust of death I rise

to claim my mansion in the skies,

e’en then this shall be all my plea,

Jesus hath lived, hath died, for me.

Jesus, be endless praise to thee,

whose boundless mercy hath for me,

for me a full atonement made,

an everlasting ransom paid.

O let the dead now hear thy voice;

now bid thy banished ones rejoice;

their beauty this, their glorious dress,

Jesus, thy blood and righteousness.