#27mar2016

Isaiah 53:

1 Who has believed our message    and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,    and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

4 Surely he took up our pain    and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God,    stricken by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,    he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him,    and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,    each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him    the iniquity of us all.

7 He was oppressed and afflicted,    yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,    and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,    so he did not open his mouth. 8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.    Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living;    for the transgression of my people he was punished. 9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,    and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence,    nor was any deceit in his mouth.