[Verse 1] There are five knives at five doorways, and the killers will not wait, and you could stop them all by killing one man at the gate. I'm a watcher by the roadside; I have nothing here but sight, and I'd sooner see the five men die than see you kill tonight. [Pre-Chorus] It isn't just my hands I keep: a wrong is wrong in any hand, and what I'd never do myself I'll never want from any man. [Chorus A] Stay your hand, stay your hand, let no stranger pay; I'd sooner mourn the five than see them saved in such a way. Your hands stay clean, and mine will do the same; the five may die, but not in our name. [Verse 2] But you never heard me pleading, and you laid the stranger low, and you ran to stop the killers, and I wait, and I don't know— with five lives on the outcome, I should pray with all I've got that you stop the five knives falling. And I find that I cannot. [Verse 3 — slower, spoken word] Top rung: you walk away, and five are murdered where they stand. Next rung: you kill the one, and five are saved by your red hand. Third rung: you kill and fail, and six lie dead—you meant it well. Last rung: you kill him just for sport, and six lie dead as well. [Chorus B] The top rung's five, the bottom's six: one killing more in all. Between success and failure lie five murders—that's the fall. And you can't fit a five-grave drop in a ladder one grave tall, unless those five count less than one, or scarcely count at all. [Verse 4] That's why my prayer can barely rise, however hard I try: for a hope can stretch no wider than the gap where two rungs lie, and no gap between two rungs can ever pass the ladder's height— so five murders stir a fainter prayer than one more murder might. [Verse 5] Does the blood that's spilled already make the next five murders small? Must the shadow of one killing stretch so far it hides them all? So I'll mend it: what I'm sworn to keep clean is my own hand, not yours at any price in lives. Go on. I understand. So I'll hang the rungs again, and set your rescue up on high: one grave up there, and six below, and five between them lie. Now the five-grave fall can fit; I've room to fear the very worst, and I find I pray with all I've got—and wish I'd prayed it first. [Pre-Chorus 2 — drums enter] But next time, before blood is spilled, before the stranger's even killed, I'll pray for what my rules forbid: that you would do just what you did. [Chorus A'] Stain your hand, stain your hand, let the stranger pay; don't follow me, don't heed my creed, don't do it my way. My hands stay clean— that's all they'll ever do. The five survive if the sin's on you. [Verse 6] So I wander through this world, a prophet no one should believe, with a flock I preach to every day, yet pray will turn and leave. Every student who ignores me is a victory in disguise; the truest converts to my doctrine are the ones who apostatize. [Pre-Chorus 3] I'm the saint who prays for sinners— they're the ones who'll save your life. My heaven runs on trespass, and my halo needs your knife. [Outro — slow] I'm praying for your heresy— don't let them die for faith in me. Whatever creed I keep for my own hand, I'd have you burn it where you stand, and you would have me burn it too; it's what a decent heart would do. A law that every heart must pray all other hands will disobey— call it duty if you will. It's a curse. I keep it still.
