Come ye thankful people come

According to an online website specializing in hymns, Come ye thankful people come appears in 608 hymnals. On the one hand it’s a song of gratitude to the Lord for the food provided in this year’s harvest. Yet the references to Mark 4:26-29 and Matthew 13:24-30 and 36-43, also call for a hastening of God’s final harvest.

Hear this beautiful rendition and be blessed.

Video

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Lyrics

   1. Come, ye thankful people, come,
   Raise the song of harvest home!
   All is safely gathered in,
   Ere the winter storms begin;
   God, our Maker, doth provide
   For our wants to be supplied;
   Come to God's own temple, come;
   Raise the song of harvest home!
   
   2. We ourselves are God's own field,
   Fruit unto his praise to yield;
   Wheat and tares together sown
   Unto joy or sorrow grown;
   First the blade and then the ear,
   Then the full corn shall appear;
   Grant, O harvest Lord, that we
   Wholesome grain and pure may be.
   
   3. For the Lord our God shall come,
   And shall take the harvest home;
   From His field shall in that day
   All offenses purge away,
   Giving angels charge at last
   In the fire the tares to cast;
   But the fruitful ears to store
   In the garner evermore.
   
   4. Then, thou Church triumphant come,
   Raise the song of harvest home!
   All be safely gathered in,
   Free from sorrow, free from sin,
   There, forever purified,
   In God's garner to abide;
   Come, ten thousand angels, come,
   Raise the glorious harvest home!
   
   Henry Alford (1844)

Reference is to hymnary dot org.