Drop Down Ye Heavens (The Advent Prose)

Drop down ye heavens, from above,

and let the skies pour down righteousness:

Be not wroth very sore, O Lord,

neither remember iniquity for ever:

behold, the holy city is a wilderness:

Sion is a wilderness,

Jerusalem a desolation:

the house of your sanctification and your glory,

where thee our fathers praised.

We have sinned, and are as an unclean thing,

and we all do fade as a leaf:

and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away;

thou hast hid thy face from us:

and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities.

Behold, O Lord, the affliction of thy people,

and send forth Him who is to come;

send forth the Lamb, the ruler of the earth,

from Petra of the desert to the mount of the daughter of Sion:

that He may take away the yoke of our captivity.

Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord,

and my servant whom I have chosen;

that ye may know me and believe me:

I, even I, am the Lord, and beside me there is no Savior:

and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.

Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people,

my salvation shall not tarry:

why wilt thou waste away in sadness?

why hath sorrow seized thee?

Fear not, for I will save thee:

for I am the Lord thy God,

the Holy One of Israel, thy Redeemer.

~A plainsong hymn with texts taken from Isaiah and sung in the season of Advent