Lost Sabbaths

Those who escaped the sword were carried captive to Babylon, 

where they became servants of the king of the Chaldeans and his sons

until the kingdom of the Persians came to power.

All this was to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah: 

“Until the land has retrieved its lost sabbaths, 

during all the time it lies waste it shall have rest 

while seventy years are fulfilled.”

2 Chronicles 36: 14-16, 19-23

To the tune FINLANDIA:

How long, O Lord, shall we live on in exile,
torn from our roots that sheltered in your ground
where hope was green and love was rich and fertile,
until we turned and burned it sere and brown?
How long until our suffering is worthwhile
and all the sabbaths that we lost are found?

Restore us, Lord, as streams within the desert,
and bring us back to reap again in joy.
We sowed in tears, but may it blossom ever,
this rising hope and reason to rejoice:
We shall return and leave our homeland never,
when you reach down in answer to our voice.

For you, O God, are loving and forgiving,
and you will gather all your had dispersed.
Then we shall bring the harvest of your giving
and offer you the hope you gave us first:
the springing green, the lost now found and living,
the ripened gold that from our hearts has burst.