How few receive with cordial faith

the tidings which we bring?

How few have seen the arm revealed

of heav’n’s eternal King?

The Saviour comes! no outward pomp

bespeaks his presence nigh;

No earthly beauty shines in him

to draw the carnal eye.

Fair as a beauteous tender flow’r

amidst the desert grows,

So slighted by a rebel race

the heav’nly Saviour rose.

Rejected and despised of men,

behold a man of woe!

Grief was his close companion still

through all his life below.

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.

We held him as condemned by Heav’n,

an outcast from his God,

While for our sins he groaned, he bled,

beneath his Father’s rod.

His sacred blood hath washed our souls

from sin’s polluted stain;

His stripes es have healed us, and his death

revived our souls again.

We all, like sheep, had gone astray

in ruin’s fatal road:

On him were our transgressions laid;

he bore the mighty load.

Wronged and oppressed how meekly he

in patient silence stood!

Mute, as the peaceful harmless lamb,

when brought to shed its blood.

Who can his generation tell?

from prison see him led!

With impious show of law condemned,

and numbered with the dead.

’Midst sinners low in dust he lay;

the rich a grave supplied:

Unspotted was his blameless life;

unstained by sin he died.

Yet God shall raise his head on high,

though thus he brought him low;

His sacred off’ring, when complete,

shall terminate his woe.

For, saith the Lord, my pleasure then

shall prosper in his hand;

His shall a num’rous offspring be,

and still his honours stand.

His soul, rejoicing, shall behold

the purchase of his pain;

And all the guilty whom he saved

shall bless Messiah’s reign.

He with the great shall share the spoil,

and baffle all his foes;

Though ranked with sinners, here he fell,

a conqueror he rose.

He died 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.