[Intro]
Empty hands, come near.
A table waits beside the water;
the price has been laid away.
[Verse 1]
Come to water, wine, and milk without price.
Why weigh your silver for a loaf that leaves you hollow?
Hear, and your soul shall live in the sure mercies of David.
Nations unknown will run toward the witness and commander.
Seek the LORD while his nearness may be found.
[Pre-Chorus]
Leave the crooked road, release the restless thought;
return, the pardon is abundant.
[Chorus]
What leaves his mouth comes home fulfilled:
rain to the root, seed to the hand,
bread to the table, joy to the road,
his word returns with the work complete.
[Instrumental - 4 bars]
[Verse 2]
Heaven lifts farther than the reach of earth;
so are his ways above the ways we choose.
Snow and rain do not climb back empty;
they wake the ground and make the green thing rise,
carrying the sower and the eater through.
[Chorus]
What leaves his mouth comes home fulfilled:
rain to the root, seed to the hand,
bread to the table, peace to the road,
his word returns with the work complete.
[Outro]
Mountains answer; trees beat time.
Fir overtakes thorn, myrtle overtakes brier.
Peace leads the company beneath an everlasting sign.
Isaiah 55: The invitation costs nothing and changes the landscape
Chapter 55 of the Book of Isaiah begins like a marketplace and immediately breaks the market’s rules. Water, wine, milk, and rich food are offered to people who have no money, while the real waste is exposed as labor spent on what cannot satisfy. Listening becomes the means of receiving the gift, and the invitation opens into an everlasting covenant rooted in the sure mercies of David and extending toward nations not previously known. The chapter’s famous contrast between divine and human thoughts is placed inside a call to return from wicked ways and receive abundant pardon. Higher ways are therefore seen in mercy as well as majesty. The word that announces these things is compared with rain and snow that leave the earth productive rather than returning empty. By the end, the same abundance has moved into the landscape itself: mountains sing, trees clap, thorn and brier give way, and the road home becomes an enduring sign.
