Isaiah 5

¹ Let me sing for my beloved
my love-song about his vineyard.
My beloved had a vineyard
on a fertile hillside.

² He dug it and cleared it of stones
and planted it with choice vines.
He built a watchtower in its midst
and also hewed out a wine vat in it.
He expected it to yield grapes,
but it yielded wild grapes.

³ And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem
and people of Judah,
judge between me
and my vineyard.

⁴ What more could have been done for my vineyard
that I did not do in it?
Why did I expect it to yield grapes,
but it yielded wild grapes?

⁵ And now, let me tell you
what I am about to do to my vineyard:
I will remove its hedge,
and it shall be consumed;
I will break down its wall,
and it shall become trampled ground.

⁶ I will make it a wasteland;
it shall not be pruned or hoed,
and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns.
I will command the clouds
that they rain no rain upon it.

⁷ For the vineyard of the LORD of Hosts
is the house of Israel,
and the people of Judah
are his cherished planting.
He expected justice—but look, bloodshed!
Righteousness—but look, a cry!

⁸ Woe to those who join house to house,
who add field to field,
until there is no room,
and you are made to dwell alone
in the midst of the land.

⁹ In my hearing the LORD of Hosts has sworn:
Surely many houses shall become desolate,
large and fine ones, without inhabitant.

¹⁰ For ten acres of vineyard shall yield but one bath,
and a homer of seed shall yield but an ephah.

¹¹ Woe to those who rise early in the morning
chasing strong drink,
who linger in the twilight
as wine inflames them!

¹² Lyre and harp, tambourine and flute
and wine are at their feasts,
but the work of the LORD they do not regard,
and the deed of his hands they do not see.

¹³ Therefore my people go into exile
for lack of knowledge,
and their honored men are famished,
and their multitude parched with thirst.

¹⁴ Therefore Sheol has enlarged its appetite
and opened its mouth beyond measure,
and down go her splendor and her tumult
and her revelry, and whoever exults in her.

¹⁵ Humankind is humbled and each person brought low,
and the eyes of the haughty are brought low.

¹⁶ But the LORD of Hosts is exalted in justice,
and the Holy God shows himself holy in righteousness.

¹⁷ Then lambs shall graze as in their pasture,
and fatlings and kids shall feed among the ruins.

¹⁸ Woe to those who drag iniquity with cords of falsehood,
and sin as with cart ropes—

¹⁹ who say: 'Let him hurry,
let him speed his work
that we may see it!
Let the plan of the Holy One of Israel
draw near and come,
that we may know it!'

²⁰ Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter!

²¹ Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes
and clever in their own sight!

²² Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine
and valiant men at mixing strong drink,

²³ who acquit the guilty for a bribe
and deprive the innocent of their right!

²⁴ Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours stubble
and dry grass sinks in the flame,
their root shall be as rottenness
and their blossom shall go up as dust—
for they have rejected the instruction of the LORD of Hosts
and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

²⁵ Therefore the anger of the LORD blazed against his people,
and he stretched out his hand against them and struck them,
and the mountains trembled,
and their corpses were like refuse in the streets.
For all this his anger has not turned,
and his hand is still stretched out.

²⁶ He will raise a signal to a nation far away
and whistle for it from the ends of the earth;
and look—swiftly, speedily it comes!

²⁷ None among them is weary, none stumbles;
none slumbers or sleeps.
No waistband is loose,
no sandal-strap broken.

²⁸ Its arrows are sharpened,
and all its bows bent.
Its horses' hooves are like flint,
and its wheels like the whirlwind.

²⁹ Its roar is like a lioness;
it roars like young lions.
It growls and seizes its prey
and carries it off with none to rescue.

³⁰ It shall growl over it on that day
like the growling of the sea.
And if one looks to the land—
only darkness and distress,
and the light is darkened by its clouds.