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| GOD got me ere His works began, | |
| The first in all creation’s plan. | |
| From everlasting was my birth, | |
| Yea, from the first, before the earth. | |
| Ere there were deeps I was begot | 5 |
| When water-laden springs were not. | |
| I was brought forth before, as yet | |
| The hills and mountains had been set; | |
| Ere He the land and wastes had made, | |
| Ere He the world’s first dust had laid. | 10 |
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| When He prepared the heavens new, | |
| And on the face a circle drew | |
| Of the vast deep, there I was, too: | |
| When skies above He firm did frame; | |
| When the deep’s fountains strong became; | 15 |
| When to the sea its bounds He set, | |
| So that its borders ne’er should get | |
| Beyond its borders, and when He | |
| Marked out what should earth’s bases be; | |
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| I as His foster-child did stay | 20 |
| With Him, delighting Him each day, | |
| And in His presence e’er did play, | |
| Exulting at His world in sight; | |
| The sons of men were my delight. | |
| Now children, hearken unto me; | 25 |
| Who keep my ways they blest shall be. | |
| Instruction hear ye and be wise, | |
| Yea, no instruction e’er despise. | |
| Happy the man that heeds my say, | |
| That watches at my gates each day, | 30 |
| That at my door-posts waits alway. | |
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| For he that findeth me finds Life; | |
| He’ll from the Lord get favour rife; | |
| But he that misses me, the goal, | |
| Does violence to his own soul; | 35 |
| Yea, Death is courted by all those | |
| That hate me ever as my foes. | |
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