Isaiah

¹ Who would have thought God's saving power would look like this?

² a scrubby plant in a parched field. There was nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a second look.

³ a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away. We looked down on him, thought he was scum.

⁴ our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures.

⁵ that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed.

⁶ We've all done our own thing, gone our own way. And God has piled all our sins, everything we've done wrong, on him, on him.

⁷ but he didn't say a word. Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered and like a sheep being sheared, he took it all in silence.

⁸ and did anyone really know what was happening? He died without a thought for his own welfare, beaten bloody for the sins of my people.

⁹ threw him in a grave with a rich man, Even though he'd never hurt a soul or said one word that wasn't true.

¹⁰ to crush him with pain. The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin so that he'd see life come from it—life, life, and more life. And God's plan will deeply prosper through him.

¹¹ he'll see that it's worth it and be glad he did it. Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant, will make many "righteous ones," as he himself carries the burden of their sins.

¹² the best of everything, the highest honors— Because he looked death in the face and didn't flinch, because he embraced the company of the lowest. He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many, he took up the cause of all the black sheep.