Before the rooster crows,
three times thou wilt deny.
Three times you'll disavow my name
and swear by earth and sky.
Three times, not one or two or three,
you'll vow we've never met
Three times you'll protest, shout, and curse,
three times, three times, and yet …

And yet I know your love is real
as real as fear, and as this night.
I know that you'll return to me.
I know you'll see the light.

I know these things and know know them deeply
and you were meant to follow.
But this is the pill of bitter pain
that you must somehow swallow.

Three times you will deny me now
though now you vow to stay the course.
I know that you believe your strength
but this you cannot win by force.
Three times you'll drink the cup of failure
and choke upon its grief.
The cock will crow and you will weep
But there will come a moment of relief.

I will meet you in a morning
when your head is hung in shame.
I'll meet you by the seashore
and you will call my name.

I'll meet you where your pain meets mine
and walk the miles with you once more.
I'll ask you once again, my friend,
"Do you love me, like you said before?"

This time, Peter, don't you know
that love is calling ever stronger?
It calls the servant who feeds the sheep.
It calls to walk a little longer.

Three times you nodded, "No. No. No."
Though just before you were so brave.
Today I tell you, "Go. Go. Go."
Your "yes" will take you to a grave.
But you will go, though bound and tied
to bear a cross in a distant place.
You choose the path for you choose me.
I go with you … No more disgrace.

Luke 22:52-62
Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple police, and the elders who had come for him, "Have you come out with swords and clubs as if I were a bandit? When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness!" Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest's house. But Peter was following at a distance. When they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat among them. Then a servant-girl, seeing him in the firelight, stared at him and said, "This man also was with him." But he denied it, saying, "Woman, I do not know him." A little later someone else, on seeing him, said, "You also are one of them." But Peter said, "Man, I am not!" Then about an hour later still another kept insisting, "Surely this man also was with him; for he is a Galilean." But Peter said, "Man, I do not know what you are talking about!" At that moment, while he was still speaking, the cock crowed. The Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, "Before the cock crows today, you will deny me three times." And he went out and wept bitterly.