{
 "id": "john-newton/the-pool-of-bethesda",
 "title": "The Pool of Bethesda.",
 "ordinal": "112",
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "John Newton",
 "poet_slug": "john-newton",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Olney Hymns",
 "book_slug": "olney-hymns",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 112,
 "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": 32,
  "n_stanzas": 8,
  "n_parts": 8,
  "longest_line_chars": 39,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [
  {
   "ordinal": "I",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    0,
    1
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "II",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
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  },
  {
   "ordinal": "III",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
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   "ordinal": "IV",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
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   "title": null,
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  },
  {
   "ordinal": "VI",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
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   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "VII",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
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   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "VIII",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
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   ]
  }
 ],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Beside the gospel pool,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Appointed for the poor,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "From year to year my helpless soul",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Has waited for a cure.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "How often have I seen",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The healing waters move,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And others, round me, stepping in,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their efficacy prove!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But my complaints remain:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I feel the very same;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As full of guilt and fear and pain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As when at first I came.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O would the Lord appear",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "My malady to heal;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "He knows how long I’ve languish’d here,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And what distress I feel.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "How often have I thought,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Why should I longer lie?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Surely the mercy I have sought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is not for such as I?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But whether can I go?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "There is no other pool",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Where streams of sovereign virtue flow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To make a sinner whole.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Here, then, from day to day,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I’ll wait and hope and try;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Can Jesus hear a sinner pray,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet suffer him to die!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "No: he is full of grace;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "He never will permit",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A soul that fain would see his face",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To perish at his feet.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}