If the world should hate you,

Remember where it started.

Before it turned upon your name,

It turned on his with darkness.

The world protects its likeness,

Calls its own familiar kin;

But those drawn out to follow Christ

Will not fit wholly in.

The world hath hated him first;

Do not mistake the road.

A servant is not greater

Than the Master he has known.

The world hath hated him first;

The warning named the price.

The path that bears his name

Will cross the world's refusal.

If they persecuted Jesus,

They will pursue his friends.

If any kept his saying,

They may receive what witness sends.

But hatred done for his name

Reveals a deeper night:

They do not know the Father

Though they claim religious sight.

His words removed the covering;

His works removed excuse.

No other man had done such works,

Yet hatred chose refusal.

To hate the Son was also

To hate the Father shown;

The law had named the causeless hate

Before the cause was known.

They hated him without a cause;

The written word stood true.

Truth did not fail because men raged;

Their rage fulfilled what Scripture knew.

They hated him without a cause;

The darkness named itself.

The Spirit of truth will testify;

The witness will not die.

The Comforter comes from the Father

When Jesus leaves their sight.

And those who walked beside him

From the beginning of the way

Will bear their own true witness

When the world rejects his name.

These words were given beforehand

So stumbling would not win.

The synagogue would close its doors

Against the faithful witness.

An hour would come when killers

Would call the blood they shed

A service offered unto God,

While knowing neither Son nor Father.

Religious hands can carry hate

And still pronounce it holy.

Ignorance can wear a sacred robe

And kill while claiming duty.

So memory must hold the warning

When persecution fills the room:

He told them of the hour before it came,

That faith might recognize the wound.

The Spirit of truth will testify;

The witness will not die.

The Comforter comes from the Father

When Jesus leaves their sight.

The world may hate the chosen,

May drive them from its gate;

But hatred cannot make a lie of truth,

Nor silence what they saw.

He told them before the hour,

Because he would not remain beside them.