Isaiah 51-53

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

⁴ Listen to me, my people,
    and give heed to me, my nation,
for a teaching will go out from me
    and my justice for a light to the peoples.^(D)
5 I will bring near my deliverance swiftly;
    my salvation has gone out,
    and my arms will rule the peoples;
the coastlands wait for me,
    and for my arm they hope.^(E)
6 Lift up your eyes to the heavens
    and look at the earth beneath,
for the heavens will vanish like smoke,
    the earth will wear out like a garment,
    and those who live on it will die like gnats,^[a]
but my salvation will be forever,
    and my deliverance will never be ended.^(F)

⁷ Listen to me, you who know righteousness,
    you people who have my teaching in your hearts;
do not fear the reproach of others,
    and do not be dismayed when they revile you.^(G)
8 For the moth will eat them up like a garment,
    and the worm will eat them like wool,
but my deliverance will be forever
    and my salvation to all generations.^(H)

⁹ Awake, awake, put on strength,
    O arm of the Lord!
Awake, as in days of old,
    the generations of long ago!
Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces,
    who pierced the dragon?^(I)
10 Was it not you who dried up the sea,
    the waters of the great deep;
who made the depths of the sea a way
    for the redeemed to cross over?^(J)
11 So the ransomed of the Lord shall return
    and come to Zion with rejoicing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
    they shall obtain joy and gladness,
    and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.^(K)

¹² I, I am he who comforts you;
    why then are you afraid of a mere mortal who must die,
    a human being who fades like grass?^(L)
13 You have forgotten the Lord, your Maker,
    who stretched out the heavens
    and laid the foundations of the earth.
You fear continually all day long
    because of the fury of the oppressor,
who is bent on destruction.
    But where is the fury of the oppressor?^(M)
14 The oppressed shall speedily be released;
    they shall not die and go down to the Pit,
    nor shall they lack bread.^(N)
15 For I am the Lord your God,
    who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—
    the Lord of hosts is his name.^(O)
16 I have put my words in your mouth
    and hidden you in the shadow of my hand,
stretching out^[b] the heavens
    and laying the foundations of the earth
    and saying to Zion, “You are my people.”^(P)

¹⁷ Rouse yourself, rouse yourself!
    Stand up, O Jerusalem,
you who have drunk at the hand of the Lord
    the cup of his wrath,
who have drunk to the dregs
    the cup of staggering.^(Q)
18 There is no one to guide her
    among all the children she has borne;
there is no one to take her by the hand
    among all the children she has brought up.^(R)
19 These two things have befallen you
    —who will grieve with you?—
devastation and destruction, famine and sword.
    Who will comfort you?^[c](S)
20 Your children have fainted;
    they lie at the head of every street
    like an antelope in a net;
they are full of the wrath of the Lord,
    the rebuke of your God.^(T)

²¹ Therefore hear this, you who are wounded,^[d]
    who are drunk but not with wine:^(U)
22 Thus says your Sovereign, the Lord,
    your God who pleads the cause of his people:
See, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering;
you shall drink no more
    from the cup of my wrath.^(V)
23 And I will put it into the hand of your tormentors,
    who have said to you,
    “Bow down, that we may walk on you,”
and you have made your back like the ground
    and like the street for them to walk on.^(W)

⁷ How beautiful upon the mountains
    are the feet of the messenger who announces peace,
who brings good news,
    who announces salvation,
    who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”^(AD)
8 Listen! Your sentinels lift up their voices;
    together they shout for joy,
for in plain sight they see
    the return of the Lord to Zion.^(AE)
9 Break forth; shout together for joy,
    you ruins of Jerusalem,
for the Lord has comforted his people;
    he has redeemed Jerusalem.^(AF)
10 The Lord has bared his holy arm
    before the eyes of all the nations,
and all the ends of the earth shall see
    the salvation of our God.^(AG)

¹¹ Depart, depart, go out from there!
    Touch no unclean thing;
go out from the midst of it; purify yourselves,
    you who carry the vessels of the Lord.^(AH)
12 For you shall not go out in haste,
    and you shall not go in flight,
for the Lord will go before you,
    and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.^(AI)

53 Who has believed what we have heard?
    And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?^(AM)
2 For he grew up before him like a young plant
    and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.^(AN)
3 He was despised and rejected by others;
    a man of suffering^[i] and acquainted with infirmity,
and as one from whom others hide their faces^[j]
    he was despised, and we held him of no account.^(AO)

⁴ Surely he has borne our infirmities
    and carried our diseases,
yet we accounted him stricken,
    struck down by God, and afflicted.^(AP)
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions,
    crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
    and by his bruises we are healed.^(AQ)
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
    we have all turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.^(AR)

⁷ He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
    yet he did not open his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter
    and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.^(AS)
8 By a perversion of justice he was taken away.
    Who could have imagined his future?
For he was cut off from the land of the living,
    stricken for the transgression of my people.^(AT)
9 They made his grave with the wicked
    and his tomb^[k] with the rich,^[l]
although he had done no violence,
    and there was no deceit in his mouth.^(AU)

¹⁰ Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with affliction.
When you make his life an offering for sin,^[m]
    he shall see his offspring and shall prolong his days;
through him the will of the Lord shall prosper.^(AV)
11     Out of his anguish he shall see;
he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge.
    The righteous one,^[n] my servant, shall make many righteous,
    and he shall bear their iniquities.^(AW)
12 Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great,
    and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out himself to death
    and was numbered with the transgressors,
yet he bore the sin of many
    and made intercession for the transgressors.^(AX)