Why come you out to me with clubs and staves,
That you on every side have fenced me so?
In every act you dig for me deep graves;
In which my feet must walk where'er I go;
You speak and in your words my death I find,
Pierced through with many sorrows to the core;
And none that will the bleeding spirit bind,
But at each touch still freer flows the gore;
But with my stripes your deep-dyed sins are healed,
For I must show my master's love for you;
The cov'nant that he made, forever sealed,
By blood is witnessed to be just and true;
And you in turn must bear the stripes I bear,
And in his sufferings learn alike to share.