A Good Friday Meditation

He Was Pierced for Our Transgressions

¹³Behold, my servant shall act wisely;2

he shall be high and lifted up,

and shall be exalted.

¹⁴As many were astonished at you—

his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance,

and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—

¹⁵so shall he sprinkle3 many nations;

kings shall shut their mouths because of him;

for that which has not been told them they see,

and that which they have not heard they understand.

¹Who has believed what he has heard from us?1

And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

²For 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,

and no beauty that we should desire him.

³He was despised and rejected2 by men;

a man of sorrows,3 and acquainted with4 grief;5

and as one from whom men hide their faces6

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

⁴Surely he has borne our griefs

and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,

smitten by God, and afflicted.

⁵But he was pierced for our transgressions;

he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

and with his wounds we are healed.

⁶All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned—every one—to his own way;

and the Lord has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

⁷He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

yet he opened not his mouth;

like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

so he opened not his mouth.

⁸By oppression and judgment he was taken away;

and as for his generation, who considered

that he was cut off out of the land of the living,

stricken for the transgression of my people?

⁹And they made his grave with the wicked

and with a rich man in his death,

although he had done no violence,

and there was no deceit in his mouth.

¹⁰Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;

he has put him to grief;7

when his soul makes8 an offering for guilt,

he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;

the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

¹¹Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see9 and be satisfied;

by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,

make many to be accounted righteous,

and he shall bear their iniquities.

¹²Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,10

and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,11

because he poured out his soul to death

and was numbered with the transgressors;

yet he bore the sin of many,

and makes intercession for the transgressors.