The Hebrew Bible Isaiah 53 by Robert Alter Lyrics
1 Who could believe what we heard, and to whom was the Lord's arm revealed?
2 He sprung up like a shoot before him and like a root from parched land. He had no features nor decent appearance -- we saw nothing in his looks that we might desire.
3 Despised and shunned by people, a man of sorrows and visited by illness. And like one from whom the gaze is averted, despised, and we reckoned him naught.
4 Indeed, he has borne our illness and our sorrows he has carried. But we had reckoned him plagued, God-stricken and tormented.
5 Yet he was wounded for our crimes, crushed for our transgressions. The chastisement that restored our well-being, he bore, and through his bruising we were healed.
6 All of us strayed like sheep, each turned to his own way and the Lord brought down upon him the crimes of all of us.
7 Afflicted and tormented, he opened not his mouth. Like a lamb led to the slaughter and like an ewe mute before her shearers he opened not his mouth.
8 By oppressive judgment, he was taken off, and who can speak of where he lives? For he was cut off from the land of the living for My people's crime, bearing their blight.
9 And his grave was put with the wicked, and with evildoers his death, for no outrage he had done and no deceit in his mouth.
10 And the Lord desired to crush him, make him ill. Would he lay down a guilt offering, he would see his seed, have length of days, and the Lord's desire would prosper through him,
11 from his toil he would see light, be sated in his mind. My servant shall put the righteous in the right for many, and their crimes he shall bear.
12 Therefore I will give him shares among the many, and with the mighty he shall share out spoils, for he laid bare to death and it is he who bore the offense of many and interceded for the wrongdoers.
2 He sprung up like a shoot before him and like a root from parched land. He had no features nor decent appearance -- we saw nothing in his looks that we might desire.
3 Despised and shunned by people, a man of sorrows and visited by illness. And like one from whom the gaze is averted, despised, and we reckoned him naught.
4 Indeed, he has borne our illness and our sorrows he has carried. But we had reckoned him plagued, God-stricken and tormented.
5 Yet he was wounded for our crimes, crushed for our transgressions. The chastisement that restored our well-being, he bore, and through his bruising we were healed.
6 All of us strayed like sheep, each turned to his own way and the Lord brought down upon him the crimes of all of us.
7 Afflicted and tormented, he opened not his mouth. Like a lamb led to the slaughter and like an ewe mute before her shearers he opened not his mouth.
8 By oppressive judgment, he was taken off, and who can speak of where he lives? For he was cut off from the land of the living for My people's crime, bearing their blight.
9 And his grave was put with the wicked, and with evildoers his death, for no outrage he had done and no deceit in his mouth.
10 And the Lord desired to crush him, make him ill. Would he lay down a guilt offering, he would see his seed, have length of days, and the Lord's desire would prosper through him,
11 from his toil he would see light, be sated in his mind. My servant shall put the righteous in the right for many, and their crimes he shall bear.
12 Therefore I will give him shares among the many, and with the mighty he shall share out spoils, for he laid bare to death and it is he who bore the offense of many and interceded for the wrongdoers.