JESUS LOVES ME

Jesus loves me! This I know,
For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to Him belong;
They are weak, but He is strong.

Refrain

Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
The Bible tells me so.

Jesus loves me! This I know,
As He loved so long ago,
Taking children on His knee,
Saying, “Let them come to Me.”


Refrain

Jesus loves me still today,
Walking with me on my way,
Wanting as a friend to give
Light and love to all who live.

Refrain

Jesus loves me! He who died
Heaven’s gate to open wide;
He will wash away my sin,
Let His little child come in.

Refrain

Jesus loves me! He will stay
Close beside me all the way;
Thou hast bled and died for me,
I will henceforth live for Thee.

Refrain


This stan­za from the orig­in­al is com­mon­ly omit­ted in hymn­als:

Jesus loves me! Loves me still,
Though I’m very weak and ill,
That I might from sin be free
Bled and died upon the tree.

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Anna B. Warner (1827-1915)

Words: Stanza 1,

An­na B. War­ner, 1860. Stanzas 2-3, Da­vid Ru­ther­ford Mc­Guire. This hymn first ap­peared in the no­vel Say and Seal, by War­ner’s sis­ter Su­san; she want­ed a song for a Sun­day School teach­er to sing to a dy­ing boy, and asked An­na to write it.

Music:

Will­iam B. Brad­bu­ry, 1862

(MI­DI, score).

William B. Bradbury (1816-1868)

The Rev. Dr. Jacob Cham­ber­lain, who for ma­ny years has been work­ing among the Hin­dus, writes as fol­lows re­gard­ing this hymn, long one of the most pop­u­lar child­ren’s songs in the world: “Ma­ny years ago I trans­lat­ed in­to Tel­e­gu the child­ren’s hymn, ‘Je­sus loves me’ and taught it to the child­ren of our day-school. Scarce­ly a week lat­er, as I was go­ing through the nar­row streets of the na­tive town on horse­back, I heard sing­ing that sound­ed na­tur­al, down a side street. I stopped to list­en, cau­tious­ly draw­ing up to the cor­ner, where un­ob­served I could look down the street and see and hear. And there was a lit­tle hea­then boy, with hea­then men and wo­men stand­ing around him, sing­ing away at the top of his voice: ‘Je­sus loves me this I know…’

As he com­plet­ed the verse some one asked the quest­ion: ‘Son­ny, where did you learn that song?’ ‘Over at the Mis­sion­a­ry School,’ was the an­swer. ‘Who is that Je­sus, and what is the Bi­ble?’ ‘Oh! the Bi­ble is the book from God, they say, to teach us how to get to hea­ven, and Je­sus is the name of the di­vine Re­deem­er that came in­to the world to save us from our sins; that is what the mis­sion­ar­ies say.’ ‘Well, the song is a nice one. Come, sing us some more.’ And so the lit­tle boy went on—a hea­then himself, and sing­ing to the hea­then—about Je­sus and his love. ‘That is preach­ing the Gos­pel by proxy,’ I said to my­self, as I turned my po­ny and rode away, well sa­tis­fied to leave my lit­tle proxy to tell his in­ter­est­ed au­di­ence all he him­self knew, and sing to them over and over that sweet song of sal­va­tion.”

Sankey, pp. 179-80

In 1891, when my grand­fa­ther, Rev. Har­u­tune S. Je­nan­yan, took his wife and lit­tle daugh­ter on a per­i­lous and dan­ger­ous mis­sion­a­ry jour­ney from Tar­sus, Asia Mi­nor, the ci­ty of St. Paul, to Si­vas in Ar­men­ia, they tra­velled on horse-back through rob­ber-in­fest­ed coun­try for four­teen days. Two of the lead­ing rob­ber chiefs on that ter­ri­to­ry were Chol­lo, whose “name cast ter­ror on ev­ery side” since he had suc­cess­ful­ly evad­ed pur­su­ing Gov­ern­ment forc­es for ma­ny months, and Ka­ra Ag­ha, a fa­mous Koor­ish chief, whose name caused even the fear­some Chol­lo to trem­ble. Har­u­tune took his small par­ty di­rect­ly in­to the heart of Ka­ra Ag­ha’s coun­try, tell­ing those he met en­route that he was go­ing to be Ag­ha’s guest in his own vill­age. When they reached the bri­gand’s head-quar­ters, the mis­sion­a­ry asked that they be re­ceived as guests for the night. The sur­prised rob­ber chief gave them ac­com­mo­da­tions, en­ter­tain­ing Har­u­tune in his own spa­cious tent while his wife, Hel­ene, and their lit­tle daugh­ter, Grace were cared for in ano­ther tent by the wo­men of the vill­age. The next morn­ing, be­fore tak­ing their leave, the mis­sion­ary asked for per­miss­ion to read a por­tion of the Ho­ly Script­ure, and then of­fered a pray­er. See­ing that the chief was some­what af­fect­ed, he then said, “Do you wish to have the lit­tle child sing for you?” The chief re­plied, “Oh yes; can she?” Then lit­tle Grace, on­ly three-and-a-half years old, came for­ward and stood be­fore the tall old man and sang two songs she had re­cent­ly learned in the Sun­day School in Tar­sus, sing­ing them in the na­tive tongue, “Je­sus loves me, this I know” and “I want to be an an­gel”. The chief was so deep­ly touched, that he sent his own son, Bek­keer Ag­ha, mount­ed on a hand­some Ar­a­bi­an steed, to lead the small mis­sion­a­ry par­ty through the rest of his ter­ri­to­ry.

Emurian, p. 61

Deutsch

JESUS LIEBT MICH GANZ GEWISS

Jesus liebt mich, ganz gewiss
Denn die Bibel sagt mir dies,
Alle Kinder schwach und klein,
Lad’t Er herzlich zu sich ein.

Ja, Jesus liebt mich,
Ja, Jesus liebt mich,
Ja, Jesus liebt mich,
Die Bibel sagt mir dies.

Source: http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/j/e/jesuslme.htm