How few receive with cordial faith
the tidings which we bring?
How few have seen the arm reveal’d
of heav’n’s eternal King?
2 The Saviour comes! no outward pomp
bespeaks his presence nigh;
No earthly beauty shines in him
to draw the carnal eye.
3 Fair as a beauteous tender flow’r
amidst the desert grows,
So slighted by a rebel race
the heav’nly Saviour rose.
4 Rejected and despis’d of men,
behold a man of woe!
Grief was his close companion still
through all his life below.
5 Yet all the griefs he felt were ours,
ours were the woes he bore:
Pangs, not his own, his spotless soul
with bitter anguish tore.
6 We held him as condemn’d by Heav’n,
an outcast from his God,
While for our sins he groan’d, he bled,
beneath his Father’s rod.
7 His sacred blood hath wash’d our souls
from sin’s polluted stain;
His stripes have heal’d us, and his death
reviv’d our souls again.
8 We all, like sheep, had gone astray
in ruin’s fatal road:
On him were our transgressions laid;
he bore the mighty load.
9 Wrong’d and oppress’d, how meekly he
in patient silence stood!
Mute, as the peaceful harmless lamb,
when brought to shed its blood.
10 Who can his generation tell?
from prison see him led!
With impious show of law condemn’d,
and number’d with the dead.
11 ’Midst sinners low in dust he lay;
the rich a grave supply’d:
Unspotted was his blameless life;
unstain’d by sin he dy’d.
12 Yet God shall raise his head on high,
though thus he brought him low;
His sacred off’ring, when complete,
shall terminate his woe.
13 For, saith the Lord, my pleasure then
shall prosper in his hand;
His shall a num’rous offspring be,
and still his honours stand.
14 His soul, rejoicing, shall behold
the purchase of his pain;
And all the guilty whom he sav’d
shall bless Messiah’s reign.
15 He with the great shall share the spoil,
and baffle all his foes;
Though rank’d with sinners, here he fell,
a conqueror he rose.
16 He dy’d to bear the guilt of men,
that sin might be forgiv’n:
He lives to bless them and defend,
and plead their cause in heav’n.