The theme of sorrow and exclusion

Isaiah, ch.49
7 Thus says Yahweh, the redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, to the one who is despised, detested by the nation, to the slave of despots: Kings will stand up when they see, princes will see and bow low, because of Yahweh who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel who had chosen you.

Isaiah, ch. 60
21 Your people, all of them upright, will possess the country for ever, the shoot I myself have planted, my handiwork, for my own glory.

22 The smallest will grow into a thousand, the weakest one into a mighty nation. When the time is ripe, I, Yahweh, shall quickly bring it about.

Isaiah, ch. 50

4 Lord Yahweh has given me a disciple's tongue, for me to know how to give a word of comfort to the weary. Morning by morning he makes my ear alert to listen like a disciple.

5 Lord Yahweh has opened my ear and I have not resisted, I have not turned away.

6 I have offered my back to those who struck me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; I have not turned my face away from insult and spitting.

7 Lord Yahweh comes to my help, this is why insult has not touched me, this is why I have set my face like flint and know that I shall not be put to shame.

Apocalypse of St. John, ch.10

8 Then I heard the voice I had heard from heaven speaking to me again. 'Go', it said, 'and take that open scroll from the hand of the angel standing on sea and land.'

9 I went to the angel and asked him to give me the small scroll, and he said, 'Take it and eat it; it will turn your stomach sour, but it will taste as sweet as honey.'

10 So I took it out of the angel's hand, and I ate it and it tasted sweet as honey, but when I had eaten it my stomach turned sour.

11 Then I was told, 'You are to prophesy again, this time against many different nations and countries and languages and kings.'

Isaiah, ch. 52

13 Look, my servant will prosper, will grow great, will rise to great heights.

14 As many people were aghast at him -- he was so inhumanly disfigured that he no longer looked like a man-

15 so many nations will be astonished and kings will stay tight-lipped before him, seeing what had never been told them, learning what they had not heard before.

Isaiah, ch.53

1 Who has given credence to what we have heard? And who has seen in it a revelation of Yahweh's arm?

2 Like a sapling he grew up before him, like a root in arid ground. He had no form or charm to attract us, no beauty to win our hearts;

3 he was despised, the lowest of men, a man of sorrows, familiar with suffering, one from whom, as it were, we averted our gaze, despised, for whom we had no regard.

4 Yet ours were the sufferings he was bearing, ours the sorrows he was carrying, while we thought of him as someone being punished and struck with affliction by God;

5 whereas he was being wounded for our rebellions, crushed because of our guilt; the punishment reconciling us fell on him, and we have been healed by his bruises.

6 We had all gone astray like sheep, each taking his own way, and Yahweh brought the acts of rebellion of all of us to bear on him.

7 Ill-treated and afflicted, he never opened his mouth, like a lamb led to the slaughter-house, like a sheep dumb before its shearers he never opened his mouth.