"O come, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel,
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.
Refrain:
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, thou Wisdom from on high,
who orderest all things mightily;
to us the path of knowledge show,
and teach us in her ways to go. Refrain
O come, thou Rod of Jesse, free
thine own from Satan's tyranny;
from depths of hell thy people save,
and give them victory over the grave. Refrain
O come, thou Dayspring, come and cheer
our spirits by thine advent here;
disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
and death's dark shadows put to flight. Refrain
O come, thou Key of David, come,
and open wide our heavenly home;
make safe the way that leads on high,
and close the path to misery. Refrain
O come, O come, great Lord of might,
who to thy tribes on Sinai's height
in ancient times once gave the law
in cloud and majesty and awe. Refrain
O come, thou Root of Jesse's tree,
an ensign of thy people be;
before thee rulers silent fall;
all peoples on thy mercy call. Refrain
O come, Desire of nations, bind
in one the hearts of all mankind;
bid thou our sad divisions cease,
and be thyself our King of Peace. Refrain
O come, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel,
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear. Refrain
Go to: http://www.oremus.org/hymnal/o/o084.html
Different from the version sung..but some might consider the above a more "catholic" text.
https://www.carols.org.uk/o_come_come_emmanuel.htm
"Of the Text
The pre-history of the text stretches back to the origins of the O Antiphons themselves, which were in existence by, at the latest, the eighth century. However, to speak meaningfully of the text of the hymn per se, they would need to be paraphrased in strophic, metrical form. It is certainly within the realm of possibility that efforts along those lines could have been made quite early; we know, for instance, that they were paraphrased extensively by the English poet Cynewulf in a poem written before the year 800.[1] However, despite popular imagination of an early origin for "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel," the hymn's history is first substantiated only much later
First Publication: Psalteriolum Cantionum Catholicarum
While "O come, O come, Emmanuel" is often linked with the 12th century, the earliest surviving evidence of the hymn's text is in the seventh edition of Psalteriolum Cantionum Catholicarum, which was published in Cologne in 1710. That hymnal was a major force in the history of German church music: first assembled by Jesuit hymnographer Johannes Herringsdorf in 1610 and receiving numerous revised editions through 1868, it achieved enormous impact due to its use in Jesuit schools.[2]
The text of the Psalteriolum Cantionum Catholicarum version is essentially expanded, rather than altered, over the subsequent centuries. That version exhibits all of the hymn's characteristic qualities: it is strophic and metrical (in the 88.88.88.88 hymn meter), and the order is altered so that the last of the O Antiphons (the titular "Veni Emmanuel") becomes the first verse of the hymn. Each stanza consists of a four-line verse, which adapts one of the antiphons, and a new two-line refrain ("Gaude, gaude! Emmanuel \ nascetur pro te, Israel," i.e., "Rejoice, Rejoice! Emmanuel will be born for you, O Israel"), which provides an explicitly Advent-oriented response to the petition of the verse.
This first version of the hymn includes five verses, corresponding to five of the seven standard O Antiphons, in the following order:
- "Veni, veni Emmanuel!" = "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel"
- "Veni, O Jesse Virgula" = "O Come, Thou Rod of Jesse"
- "Veni, veni, O Oriens" = "O come, Thou Dayspring, from on High"
- "Veni, clavis Davidica" = "O come, Thou Key of David, come"
- "Veni, veni, Adonai"[3] = "O come, Adonai, Lord of might"" Go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Antiphons
