Nothing But The Blood

Hillsong United keeps Robert Lowry's nineteenth-century refrain fully intact — "what can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus" — while adding an entirely new middle section that shifts the song from declaration to request: "come to us, Lord... I wanna see Your face, I wanna know Your way."

That addition changes the song's shape without changing its conclusion. The new verses ask for presence and direction; the old refrain still answers the only question that actually mattered from the start.

Jeremiah's promise that those who seek God with all their heart will find him gives the added verse its exact language, and the hymn's own closing image — "precious is the flow that makes me white as snow" — still leans on Isaiah's promise that scarlet sins can become white as snow, regardless of which century's verses are surrounding it. "We surrender here tonight" is new, but it's asking for the same thing the old hymn already answered.