How Firm a Foundation
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Organ and orchestra: an introduction, then each of the 7 verses. Tap a verse’s number to start there.
- How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,Is laid for your faith in His excellent word!What more can He say than to you He hath said,You who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?
- In every condition, in sickness, in health,In poverty's vale, or abounding in wealth,At home and abroad, on the land, on the sea,As thy days may demand shall thy strength ever be.
- Fear not, I am with thee; O be not dismayed,For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.
- When through the deep waters I call thee to go,The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.
- When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply;The flame shall not hurt thee; I only designThy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.
- E'en down to old age all My people shall proveMy sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;And when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn,Like lambs they shall still in My bosom be borne.
- The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,I will not, I will not desert to his foes;That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,I'll never, no never, no never forsake.
About this hymn
- Words
- “K” in John Rippon’s Selection of Hymns, 1787. As printed in Rippon’s Selection of Hymns, 1st American ed. (1792), no. 128, with stanza 3 line 2 as in the Hartford Selection (1799).
- Tune
- FOUNDATION, In Joseph Funk’s Genuine Church Music, 1832.
- Harmony
- Union Harmony, 1837. Score from the Open Hymnal Project.
- Recordings
- Arranged and recorded by Fish the Right, from the harmony above: the melody note for note and every chord the hymnal’s own. Played on the Salamander Grand Piano V3 by Alexander Holm (CC BY 3.0), with organ, strings, brass and timpani from VSCO 2 Community Edition by Versilian Studios (the organ sampled by Simon Dalzell); drums from Virtuosity Drums and bass from Black And Blue Basses by Versilian Studios and Karoryfer Samples; pads from GeneralUser GS by S. Christian Collins; made with abcMIDI, sfizz, FluidSynth and FFmpeg.
- Rights
- Words 1787, tune 1832, setting 1837: all published before 1931, so public domain in the United States. Checked: words (hymnary.org), tune (hymnary.org), harmony (openhymnal.org).
- Scripture
- Isaiah 43:1–2 · Hebrews 13:5