Forgive Our Sins As We Forgive

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Forgive our sins as we forgive

Author: Rosamond Herklots (1969)
Tune: DETROIT (Bradshaw)
Confession Songs
ONE LICENSE: 17454; 59738
Published in 67 hymnals

Printable scores: PDF, MusicXML
Audio files: MIDI, Recording

Piano/Organ
	Suite for Worship

Choral
	I Come with Joy

Instrumental
	Sing It Simply (25 Congregational Hymn A…

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Author: Rosamond Herklots

Rosamond E. Herklots was born of British parents in North India. Educated at Leeds University in England, she worked for many years as secretary to an eminent neurologist, and later in the head office of the Association for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus in London. She began writing hymns late in life, and some achieved an immediate success. --www.societyholytrinity.org/2007gr-hymnfestcommentary.htm Herklots began writing poetry in her childhood and turned to hymn writing in her adult years. She wrote over seventy hymns, many specifically with children in mind. --Presbyterian Hymnal Companion Go to person page >

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Related Texts

First Line:	Forgive our sins as we forgive
Title:	Forgive Our Sins As We Forgive
Author:	Rosamond Herklots (1969)
Meter:	8.6.8.6
Place of Origin:	England
Language:	English
Copyright:	© 1969 Oxford University Press
Liturgical Use:	Confession Songs

English

10 shown out of 58

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Notes

Scripture References:
all st. = Matt. 18:21-35
st.1 = Matt. 6:12

Rosamond E. Herklots (b. Masuri, India, 1905; d. Bromley, Kent, England, 1987) wrote these words in 1966 after digging out weeds in her garden and thinking how bitterness, hatred, and resentment are like poisonous weeds growing in the Christian garden of life. "Forgive Our Sins" is a hymn about being ready to forgive others again and again-as Jesus said, seventy-times-seven times! We have many hymns about God's forgiveness of our sins, but this one adds a most helpful guide in forgiving others' sins.

Herklots revised her own text into the second-person singular ("you") in 1967. That text was first published in 1969 in the British supplementary hymnal 100 Hymns for Today with the subhead “The Unforgiving Heart.” It quickly became her best-known hymn, included in most recent hymnals.

Trained as a teacher at Leeds University, Herklots taught school briefly but from 1930 to 1980 worked as a medical secretary for a London neurologist. She had written poetry since childhood, and after encouragement by members of the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland and by Oxford University Press she wrote about a hundred hymns. Some were published initially in various British hymnals and supplements, and some were contest-winners sung on BBC- TV.

Liturgical Use:
Early in the service of confession and forgiveness; as a call to forgiving each other¬especially prior to the Lord's Supper or to the offering of gifts.

--Psalter Hymnal Handbook, 1988

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