We'll Live in Tents
God bids his people on the earth,
God bids his people on the earth,Before he comes and calls them henceTo live unknit to home and hearth,Like far-bound travelers—in tents.
We'll live in tents until our feetShall reach the land by sin untrod,The gate of pearl, the golden street,Whose Builder and whose Maker, God.
Tenor and bass, under the first two lines of the chorus:We'll live in tents until our feetShall reach the land
It is his will that we should passLike strangers, sep'rate and asideFrom all the vain and worldly massThat crowd the Babylons of pride.
He'd have us rear no stately towers,Sink no foundation walls of stone.But camp each night a few short hours,And ere the morrow's dawn move on.
O brother, whatsoever chainBinds us to fleshly lust and strife,Here let us rend it in God's name,And live, henceforth, the pilgrim life.