Who has believed our message?
To whom will the LORD reveal his saving power?
My servant grew up in the LORD's presence
like a tender green shoot, sprouting from a root
in dry and sterile ground.
There was nothing beautiful
or majestic about his appearance,
nothing to attract us to him.
He was despised and rejected –
a man of sorrows,
acquainted with bitterest grief.
We turned our backs on him and
looked the other way when he went by.
He was despised, and we did not care.

Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment
from God for his own sins!
But he was wounded and crushed for our sins.
He was beaten that we might have peace.
He was whipped, and we were healed!
All of us have strayed away like sheep.
We have left God's paths to follow our own.
Yet the LORD laid on him the guilt and sins of us all.
He was oppressed and treated harshly,
yet he never said a word.
He was led as a lamb to the slaughter.
And as a sheep is silent before the shearers,
he did not open his mouth.

Isaiah 53:1-7