Isaiah 52–53

Chapter 52

¹Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. ²Shake thyself from the dust; arise, sit down, Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, captive daughter of Zion. ³For thus saith Jehovah: Ye have sold yourselves for nought, and ye shall be redeemed without money. ⁴For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: My people went down at the first into Egypt to sojourn there, and Assyria oppressed them without cause; ⁵and now, what have I here, saith Jehovah, that my people hath been taken away for nought? They that rule over them make them to howl, saith Jehovah; and continually all the day is my name scorned. ⁶Therefore my people shall know my name; therefore they shall know in that day that I am HE, that saith, Here am I.

⁷How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that announceth glad tidings, that publisheth peace; that announceth glad tidings of good, that publisheth salvation, that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! ⁸—The voice of thy watchmen, they lift up the voice, they sing aloud together; for they shall see eye to eye, when Jehovah shall bring again Zion. ⁹Break forth, sing aloud together, waste places of Jerusalem; for Jehovah comforteth his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem. ¹⁰Jehovah hath made bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. ¹¹—Depart, depart, go out from thence, touch not what is unclean; go out of the midst of her, be ye clean, that bear the vessels of Jehovah. ¹²For ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight; for Jehovah will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear-guard.

¹³Behold, my servant shall deal prudently; he shall be exalted and be lifted up, and be very high. ¹⁴As many were astonished at thee—his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the children of men ¹⁵—so shall he astonish many nations; kings shall shut their mouths at him: for what had not been told them shall they see, and what they had not heard shall they consider.

Chapter 53

¹Who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of Jehovah been revealed? ²For he shall grow up before him as a tender sapling, and as a root out of dry ground: he hath no form nor lordliness, and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. ³He is despised and left alone of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and like one from whom men hide their faces; —despised, and we esteemed him not.

⁴Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; and we, we did regard him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. ⁵But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. ⁶All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all. ⁷He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, but he opened not his mouth; he was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and was as a sheep dumb before her shearers, and he opened not his mouth. ⁸He was taken from oppression and from judgment; and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living; for the transgression of my people was he stricken. ⁹And men appointed his grave with the wicked, but he was with the rich in his death, because he had done no violence, neither was there guile in his mouth.

¹⁰Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him; he hath subjected him to suffering. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see a seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in his hand. ¹¹He shall see of the fruit of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant instruct many in righteousness; and he shall bear their iniquities. ¹²Therefore will I assign him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong: because he hath poured out his soul unto death, and was reckoned with the transgressors; and he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.