Isaiah 5

¹ Let me sing my beloved the song of my friend for his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a fertilehil side.

² He dug it, cleared it of stones, and planted it with red grapes. In the middle he built a tower, he hewed apress there too. He expected it to yield fine grapes: wild grapes were all it yielded.

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

⁴ What more could I have done for my vineyard that I have not done? Why, when I expected it to yield finegrapes, has it yielded wild ones?

⁵ Very wel , I shal tel you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I shal take away its hedge, for it to begrazed on, and knock down its wal , for it to be trampled on.

⁶ I shall let it go to waste, unpruned, undug, overgrown by brambles and thorn-bushes, and I shallcommand the clouds to rain no rain on it.

⁷ Now, the vineyard of Yahweh Sabaoth is the House of Israel, and the people of Judah the plant hecherished. He expected fair judgement, but found injustice, uprightness, but found cries of distress.

⁸ Woe to those who add house to house and join field to field until there is nowhere left and they are thesole inhabitants of the country.

⁹ Yahweh Sabaoth has sworn this in my hearing, 'Many houses wil be brought to ruin, great and fine ones left untenanted;

¹⁰ for ten acres of vineyard wil yield only one barrel, and ten bushel of seed wil yield only one bushel.'

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

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

¹³ That is why my people is in exile, for want of perception; her dignitaries starving, her populace parchedwith thirst.

¹⁴ That is why Sheol opens wide its throat and gapes with measureless jaw and down go her noblemenand populace and her loud revellers merry to the last!

¹⁵ Human nature has been humbled, humankind brought low, and the eyes of the proud have beenhumbled.

¹⁶ Yahweh Sabaoth is the more respected for his judgement, God the Holy One has displayed hisholiness by his justice!

¹⁷ Now the lambs wil graze in their old pastures, and the fields laid waste by fat cattle wil feed the kids.

¹⁸ Woe to those who drag guilt along by the reins of duplicity, drag along sin as though with a cart rope;

¹⁹ to those who say, 'Why doesn't he do his work quickly so that we can see it; why doesn't the Holy Oneof Israel's design hurry up and come true so that we can experience it?'

²⁰ Woe to those who cal what is bad, good, and what is good, bad, who substitute darkness for light andlight for darkness, who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

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

²² Woe to those whose might lies in wine bibbing, their heroism in mixing strong drinks,

²³ who acquit the guilty for a bribe and deny justice to the upright.

²⁴ Yes, as the flame devours the stubble, as the straw flares up and disappears, their root wil be likedecay and their shoot be carried off like dust, for having rejected the law of Yahweh Sabaoth, for havingdespised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

²⁵ This is why Yahweh's anger has blazed out against his people; and he has raised his hand againstthem to strike them; why the mountains have shuddered and why corpses are lying like dung in the streets. Afteral this, his anger is not spent. No, his hand is stil raised!

²⁶ He hoists a signal for a distant nation, he whistles them up from the ends of the earth; and see howswift, how fleet they come!

²⁷ None of them tired, none of them stumbling, none of them asleep or drowsy, none of them with beltunfastened, none of them with broken sandal-strap.

²⁸ Their arrows are sharpened, their bows al strung, their horses' hoofs you would think were flint andtheir wheels, a whirlwind!

²⁹ Their roar is like that of a lioness, like fierce young lions they roar, growling they seize their prey andcarry it off, with no one to prevent it,

³⁰ growling at it, that day, like the growling of the sea. Only look at the country: darkness and distress, andthe light turned to darkness by the clouds.