Isaiah 5

¹ Let me sing to my friend the song of his love for his vineyard. My friend had a vineyard on a fertile hillside.

² He dug the Soil, cleared it of stones, and planted choice vines in it. In the middle he built a tower, he dug a press there too. He expected it to yield grapes, but sour grapes were all that it gave.

³ And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, I ask you to judge between my vineyard and me.

⁴ What could I have done for my vineyard that I have not done? I expected it to yield grapes. Why did it yield sour grapes instead?

⁵ Very well, I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge for it to be grazed on, and knock down its wall for it to be trampled on.

⁶ I will lay it waste, unpruned, undug; overgrown by the briar and the thorn. I will command the clouds to rain no rain on it.

⁷ Yes, the vineyard of Yahweh Sabaoth is the House of Israel, and the men of Judah that chosen plant. He expected justice, but found bloodshed, integrity, but only a cry of distress.

⁸ Woe to those who add house to house and join field to field until everywhere belongs to them and they are the sole inhabitants of the land.

⁹ Yahweh Sabaoth has sworn this in my hearing, ‘Many houses shall be brought to ruin, great and fine, but left untenanted;

¹⁰ ten acres of vineyard will yield only one barrel, ten bushel of seed will yield only one bushel’.

¹¹ Woe to those who from early morning chase after strong drink, and stay up late at night inflamed with wine.

¹² Nothing but harp and lyre, tambourine and flute, and wine for their drinking bouts. Never a thought for the works of Yahweh, never a glance for what his hands have done.

¹³ My people will go into exile, for want of perception; her dignitaries dying of hunger, her populace parched with thirst.

¹⁴ [*a] …Yes, Sheol opens wide his throat and gapes with measureless jaw to swallow up her thronging nobility as they are shouting for joy.

¹⁵ The mortal humbled, man brought low, proud eyes will be cast down.

¹⁶ Yahweh Sabaoth will increase his glory by his sentence, the holy God will display his holiness by his integrity.

¹⁷ Lambs will graze as at pasture, fatlings and kids browse in the ruins.

¹⁸ Woe to those who draw down punishment on themselves with an ox’s halter, and sin

¹⁹ and to those who say, ‘Quick! Let him hurry his work so that we can see it; these plans of the Holy One of Israel, let them happen and come true so that we can know what they are.’

²⁰ Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil, who substitute darkness for light

²¹ Woe to those who think themselves wise and believe themselves cunning.

²² Woe to the heroes of drinking bouts, to the champions at preparing strong drinks.

²³ Woe to those who for a bribe acquit the guilty and cheat the good man of his due.

²⁴ For this, as stubble is prey for the flames and as straw vanishes in the fire, so their root will rot, their blossom be carried off like dust for rejecting the Law of Yahweh Sabaoth, and despising the word of the Holy One of Israel.

²⁵ So, Yahweh aflame with anger against his people has raised his hand to strike them; he has killed the princes, their corpses lie like dung in the streets. Yet his anger is not spent, still his hand is raised to strike.

²⁶ He hoists a signal for a distant nation, he whistles it up from the ends of the earth; and look, it comes, swiftly, promptly.

²⁷ None of them faint or weary, none sleeping or drowsy, none of them with belt loose, none with sandal-straps broken.

²⁸ Its arrows are sharpened, its bows all bent, the hoofs of its horses are like flint, its chariot-wheels like tornadoes.

²⁹ Its roar is the roar of a lioness, like a lion cub it roars, it growls and seizes its prey, it bears it off, and no one can snatch it back.

³⁰ Growling against it, that day, like the growling of the sea. Only look at the country: darkness and distress, and the light flickers out in shadows.