{
 "id": "john-newton/belshazzar",
 "title": "Belshazzar",
 "ordinal": "74",
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "John Newton",
 "poet_slug": "john-newton",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Olney Hymns",
 "book_slug": "olney-hymns",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 74,
 "container": "Book I On Select Texts of Scripture",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1779,
  "venue": "Olney Hymns (1779)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_olney-hymns-in-three-bo_newton-john_1779",
   "https://cowperandnewtonmuseum.org.uk/bulletin/computerised-index-to-the-olney-hymns/",
   "https://archive.org/details/olneyhymnsinthre00cowpuoft"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/john-newton_william-cowper_olney-hymns",
  "file": "book-1.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Olney_Hymns_%281840%29",
   "https://archive.org/details/olneyhymnsinthre00cowpuoft"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-15"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 28,
  "n_stanzas": 7,
  "n_parts": 7,
  "longest_line_chars": 40,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [
  {
   "ordinal": "I",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    0,
    1
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "II",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    1,
    2
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "III",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    2,
    3
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "IV",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    3,
    4
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "V",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    4,
    5
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "VI",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    5,
    6
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "VII",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    6,
    7
   ]
  }
 ],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Poor sinners! little do they think",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With whom they have to do!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But stand securely on the brink",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of everlasting woe.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Belshazzar thus, profanely bold,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Lord of hosts defied;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But vengeance soon his boasts control’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And humbled all his pride.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He saw a hand upon the wall",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(And trembled on his throne),",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Which wrote his sudden dreadful fall",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In characters unknown.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Why should he tremble at the view",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of what he could not read?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Foreboding conscience quickly knew",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His ruin was decreed.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "See him o’erwhelm’d with deep distress;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His eyes with anguish roll;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "His looks and loosen’d joints express",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The terrors of his soul.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "His pomp and music, guests and wine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No more delight afford:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "O sinner, ere this case be thine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Begin to seek the Lord.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The law like this hand-writing stands,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And speaks the wrath of God;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But Jesus answers its demands,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And cancels it with blood.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}