Isaiah 5

¹Let me sing for my beloved

my love-song concerning his vineyard:

My beloved had a vineyard

on a very fertile hill.

²He dug it and cleared it of stones,

and planted it with choice vines;

he built a watchtower in the midst of it,

and hewed out a wine vat in it;

he expected it to yield grapes,

but it yielded wild grapes.

³And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem

and people of Judah,

judge between me

and my vineyard.

⁴What more was there to do for my vineyard

that I have not done in it?

When I expected it to yield grapes,

why did it yield wild grapes?

⁵And now I will tell you

what I will do to my vineyard.

I will remove its hedge,

and it shall be devoured;

I will break down its wall,

and it shall be trampled down.

⁶I will make it a waste;

it shall not be pruned or hoed,

and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns;

I will also command the clouds

that they rain no rain upon it.

⁷For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts

is the house of Israel,

and the people of Judah

are his pleasant planting;

he expected justice,

but saw bloodshed;

righteousness,

but heard a cry!

⁸Ah, you who join house to house,

who add field to field,

until there is room for no one but you,

and you are left to live alone

in the midst of the land!

⁹The Lord of hosts has sworn in my hearing:

Surely many houses shall be desolate,

large and beautiful houses, without inhabitant.

¹⁰For ten acres of vineyard shall yield but one bath,

and a homer of seed shall yield a mere ephah.

¹¹Ah, you who rise early in the morning

in pursuit of strong drink,

who linger in the evening

to be inflamed by wine,

¹²whose feasts consist of lyre and harp,

tambourine and flute and wine,

but who do not regard the deeds of the Lord,

or see the work of his hands!

¹³Therefore my people go into exile without knowledge;

their nobles are dying of hunger,

and their multitude is parched with thirst.

¹⁴Therefore Sheol has enlarged its appetite

and opened its mouth beyond measure;

the nobility of Jerusalem and her multitude go down,

her throng and all who exult in her.

¹⁵People are bowed down, everyone is brought low,

and the eyes of the haughty are humbled.

¹⁶But the Lord of hosts is exalted by justice,

and the Holy God shows himself holy by righteousness.

¹⁷Then the lambs shall graze as in their pasture,

fatlings and kids shall feed among the ruins.

¹⁸Ah, you who drag iniquity along with cords of falsehood,

who drag sin along as with cart ropes,

¹⁹who say, “Let him make haste,

let him speed his work

that we may see it;

let the plan of the Holy One of Israel hasten to fulfillment,

that we may know it!”

²⁰Ah, you 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!

²¹Ah, you who are wise in your own eyes,

and shrewd in your own sight!

²²Ah, you who are heroes in drinking wine

and valiant at mixing drink,

²³who acquit the guilty for a bribe,

and deprive the innocent of their rights!

²⁴Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble,

and as dry grass sinks down in the flame,

so their root will become rotten,

and their blossom go up like dust;

for they have rejected the instruction of the Lord of hosts,

and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

²⁵Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against his people,

and he stretched out his hand against them and struck them;

the mountains quaked,

and their corpses were like refuse

in the streets.

For all this his anger has not turned away,

and his hand is stretched out still.

²⁶He will raise a signal for a nation far away,

and whistle for a people at the ends of the earth;

Here they come, swiftly, speedily!

²⁷None of them is weary, none stumbles,

none slumbers or sleeps,

not a loincloth is loose,

not a sandal-thong broken;

²⁸their arrows are sharp,

all their bows bent,

their horses’ hoofs seem like flint,

and their wheels like the whirlwind.

²⁹Their roaring is like a lion,

like young lions they roar;

they growl and seize their prey,

they carry it off, and no one can rescue.

³⁰They will roar over it on that day,

like the roaring of the sea.

And if one look to the land—

only darkness and distress;

and the light grows dark with clouds.