Isaiah 5

1Let me sing for my beloved a song about my beloved and his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.

2He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with choice vines. He built a watchtower in the middle of it and also cut out a winepress in it. He expected it to produce grapes, but it produced wild grapes.

3So now, you who live in Jerusalem and you people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard.

4What more could have been done for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to produce grapes, why did it produce wild grapes?

5Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will remove its hedge, and it will be grazed bare; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled.

6I will make it a wasteland; it will not be pruned or hoed, and briers and thorns will grow up. I will also command the clouds not to rain on it.

7For the vineyard of Yahweh of Armies is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are the planting he delighted in. He looked for justice, but there was bloodshed; for righteousness, but there was an outcry.

8Woe to those who join house to house, who add field to field until there is no room left, and you live alone in the midst of the land!

9Yahweh of Armies has declared in my hearing: Surely many houses will become desolate, great and fine houses left with no one living in them.

10For ten acres of vineyard will yield only one bath of wine, and a homer of seed will yield only an ephah of grain.

11Woe to those who get up early in the morning to chase after beer, who stay up late into the evening until wine inflames them!

12At their feasts there are lyre and harp, tambourine and flute, and wine, but they pay no attention to the deeds of Yahweh, and they do not see the work of his hands.

13Therefore my people go into exile for lack of understanding; their nobles are starving, and their masses are parched with thirst.

14Therefore Sheol has enlarged its appetite and opened its mouth beyond measure; down into it go her nobility and her masses, her uproar and all who revel in her.

15So humankind is brought low and each person humbled, and the eyes of the proud are humbled.

16But Yahweh of Armies is exalted by justice, and the holy God shows himself holy by righteousness.

17Then lambs will graze as in their own pasture, and strangers will eat among the ruins of the rich.

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

19who say, “Let him hurry; let him speed up his work so that we may see it! Let the plan of the Holy One of Israel come near and arrive, so that we may know it!”

20Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who turn darkness into light and light into darkness, who turn bitter into sweet and sweet into bitter!

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

22Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks,

23who acquit the guilty for a bribe and deny the innocent their rights!

24Therefore, as a tongue of fire eats up straw and dry grass sinks down in the flame, their root will rot and their blossom will blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of Yahweh of Armies and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

25That is why the anger of Yahweh burned against his people; he stretched out his hand against them and struck them. The mountains shook, and their corpses were like garbage in the streets. For all this his anger has not turned away; his hand is still stretched out.

26He raises a banner for the nations far away and whistles for them from the ends of the earth. And look—they come, swift and speedy!

27None of them is weary, none stumbles; none slumbers or sleeps. Not a belt is loose at the waist, not a sandal strap is broken.

28Their arrows are sharp, and all their bows are bent. Their horses’ hooves are like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind.

29Their roar is like a lion’s; they roar like young lions. They growl and seize their prey and carry it off, and no one can rescue it.

30On that day they will growl over it like the roaring of the sea. If anyone looks at the land, there is darkness and distress; even the light is darkened by its clouds.