Some background on this: in grade school we did the Stations of the Cross every Friday during Lent. We used these little brown booklets that had scripture passages associated with each station. Hearing these passages every week made it easy to commit them to memory. (Once I quoted from one in a note to my "secret Santa"--"A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter, he who finds one finds a treasure." I was such a geek that I really believed everybody had memorized the passages in the Stations booklet and that no one would guess I was the author of the note.) Those books were my first acquaintance with this bit from Isaiah. Purely from a poetical standpoint, I think it's extraordinary, the best possible use of a technique where two lines in a poem have basically the same meaning. (It's a very common poetic form in the Bible which I find tedious when reading long stuff, but with short passages it's rhetorically compelling and also makes passages easier to memorize.) Then consider how influential the main idea of it has become--that someone, if willing to be treated unfairly, can help others; that the loser is the winner in the end. The exact influence of this particular "song" is going to be a major plot point of my Nicodemus novel, so this is a useful background piece for that.
See, my servant shall prosper,
He shall be raised high and greatly exalted.
Even as many were amazed at him--
So marred was his look beyond that of man,
And his appearance beyond that of mortals--
So shall he startle many nations,
Because of him kings shall stand speechless;
For those who have not been told shall see,
Those who have not heard shall ponder it.
---
Who would believe what we have heard?
To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
He grew up like a sapling before him,
Like a shoot from the parched earth.
There was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him,
No appearance that would attract us to him.
He was spurned and avoided by men,
A man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity,
One of those from whom men hide their faces,
Spurned, and we held him in no esteem.
---
Yet it was our infirmities he bore, our sufferings that he endured,
While we thought of him as stricken, as one smitten by God and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins,
Upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole--
By his stripes we were healed.
We had all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way;
But the Lord laid upon him the guilt of us all.
---
Though he was harshly treated
He submitted and opened not his mouth,
Like a lamb led to the slaughter or a sheep before the shearers,
He was silent and opened not his mouth.
Oppressed and condemned, he was taken away,
And who would have thought any more of his destiny?
When he was cut off from the land of the living,
And smitten for the sin of his people,
A grave was assigned to him among the wicked
And a burial place with evildoers,
Though he had done no wrong nor spoken any falsehood.
[But the Lord was pleased to crush him in infirmity.]
---
If he gives his life as an offering for sin,
He shall see his descendants in a long life,
And the will of the Lord will be accomplished through him.
Because of his affliction he shall see the light in the fullness of days;
Through his suffering, my servant will justify many,
And their guilt he shall bear.
Therefore I will give him his portion among the great,
and he shall divide spoils with the mighty,
Because he surrendered himself to death,
And was counted among the wicked;
And he shall take away the sins of many,
And win pardon for their offenses.
--Isaiah 52:13-15-Isaiah 53 (New American Bible translation)