Dead Sea Isaiah Scroll

 The Isaiah Scroll was found in 1947 in limestone caves in the desert hills of Qumran, near the Dead Sea in Israel, by a shepherd boy looking for his lost goat. This scroll predates the oldest Hebrew copy (The Masoretic Text) that we have used in translating our Old Testament by at least 1000 years. Isaiah was a writing prophet in Israel in the 8th Century before Christ. The following is an old English translation of the Isaiah Scroll of a portion of the 52nd chapter and all of the 53rd chapter of Isaiah.

"Behold, my servant shall deal prudently,
and He shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high.
As many were astonished at thee;
His visage was so marred more than any man,
And his form more than the sons of men:
So shall he sprinkle many nations;
The kings shall shut their mouths at him:
For that which had not been told them shall they see;
And that which they had not heard shall they consider.
Who hath believed our report?
And to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?
For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant,
And as a root out of a dry ground:
He hath no form nor comeliness;
And when we shall see him,
there is no beauty that we should desire him.
He is despised and rejected of men;
A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief:
And we hid as it were our faces from him;
He was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he hath borne our griefs, And carried our sorrows:
Yet we did esteem him stricken, and smitten of God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions,
And he was bruised for our iniquities:
And the chastisement of our peace was upon him;
And with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned every one to his own way;
And the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
Yet he opened not his mouth:
He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter,
As a sheep before her shearers is dumb,
So he openeth not his mouth.

He was taken from prison and from judgment:
And who shall declare his generation?
For he was cut off out of the land of the living:
For the transgression of my people was he stricken.
And they made his grave with the wicked,
And with the rich in his death;
Because he had done no violence,
Neither was any deceit in his mouth.
Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him;
he hath put him to grief:
When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin,
He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days,
And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
Of the travail of his soul he shall see light,
and shall be satisfied:
By his knowledge shall his righteous servant justify many;
For he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great,
And he shall divide the spoil with the strong;
Because he hath poured out his soul unto death:
And he was numbered with the transgressors;
And he bare the sin of many,
And made intercession for the transgressors. "