Isaiah Chapter 5    

¹Let me sing for my beloved, a song of my beloved about his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.
  ²He thoroughly dug it, removed its stones, and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in the midst of it, and also hewed out a winepress in it. He looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.
  ³“Now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men 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 looked for 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 take away its hedge, and it will be eaten up. I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled down.
  ⁶I will make it a wasteland. It will not be pruned nor hoed, but it will grow briars and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it.”
  ⁷Surely the vineyard of Yahweh of Armies is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his delightful plant. And he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress.
 

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

⁹In my ears, Yahweh of Armies has spoken: “Surely many houses will be desolate, even great and beautiful ones will be unoccupied.
  ¹⁰For a ten-yoke vineyard will yield only six gallons, and ten bushels of seed will yield only a bushel.”
  ¹¹Woe to those who rise up early in the morning in pursuit of beer; who stay up late into the night until wine inflames them!
  ¹²The harp, lyre, tambourine and flute, along with wine, are at their feasts; but they do not respect what Yahweh is doing, nor have they considered the work of his hands.
  ¹³Therefore my people go into captivity because of lack of knowledge. Their honorable men are starving, and their multitudes are parched with thirst.
  ¹⁴Therefore Sheol has enlarged her throat, and opened her mouth beyond measure, and into her will descend Jerusalem’s dignitaries, her multitude, her revelers, and the jubilant.
  ¹⁵So humankind is brought low; people are humbled, and the eyes of the arrogant ones are humbled,
  ¹⁶but Yahweh of Armies is exalted by justice, and God the Holy One shows himself holy by righteousness.
  ¹⁷Then the lambs will graze as in their own pasture, and strangers will eat among the ruins of the rich.
  ¹⁸Woe to those who drag iniquity with cords made of deceit, and sin as if with cart ropes,
  ¹⁹who say, “Let him make speed, let him hasten his work, that we may see it, and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come, that we may know it!”
  ²⁰Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
  ²¹Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight!
  ²²Woe to those who are mighty to drink wine, and champions at mixing beer,
  ²³who acquit the guilty for a bribe and deny justice for the innocent!
  ²⁴Therefore as a tongue of fire devours the stubble and as the dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root will be as rottenness and their blossom will go up as dust, because they have rejected the law of Yahweh of Armies and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel.
  ²⁵Therefore Yahweh’s anger burns against his people, and he has stretched out his hand against them and has struck them. The mountains tremble, and their dead bodies are as refuse in the midst of the streets. Despite all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is still stretched out.
  ²⁶He will lift up a banner for the nations far away, and he will whistle for them from the end of the earth. Behold, they will come speedily and swiftly.
  ²⁷None will be weary nor stumble among them; none will slumber nor sleep, nor will the belt of their waist be untied, nor the latchet of their sandals be broken,
  ²⁸whose arrows are sharp and all their bows bent. Their horses’ hoofs will be like flint, and their chariot wheels like a windstorm.
  ²⁹Their roaring will be like a lioness. They will roar like young lions. They will roar and seize their prey and carry it off, and there will be no one to rescue.
  ³⁰They will roar against them in that day like the roaring of the sea. If one looks to the land, behold, darkness and distress; and the light is darkened by its clouds.