Isaiah 5
5
V
1Let me sing now to my Beloved,
A song of my Beloved touching his vineyard.
My Beloved had a vineyard
Upon a very fruitful hill.
2He digged it, and cleared it of stones,
And planted it with the choicest vine,
And he built a tower in the midst of it,
And also hewed out a wine-vat therein;
And he expected, that it should bring forth grapes;
But it brought forth baneful berries.
3And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and ye men of Judah,
Judge, I pray you, between me and my vineyard.
4What could have been done more to my vineyard,
Than I have done unto it?
Why, when I expected that it should bring forth grapes,
Brought it forth baneful berries?
5But come now, and I will make known unto you
What I will do unto my vineyard
I will remove its hedge, and it shall be eaten up;
I will demolish its wall, and it shall be trodden down.
6And I will make it a waste:
It shall not be pruned, neither shall it be weeded; But there shall come up briers and thorns;
And to the clouds I will give command,
That they rain no rain upon it.
7For the vineyard of Jehovah of hosts is the house of Israel;
And the men of Judah his pleasant plant:
He looked for judgment, and behold a shedding of blood;
For justice, and behold a cry.
8Wo unto them, who join house to house;
Who lay field unto field together;
Until there be no more room left,
And ye dwell by yourselves alone in the midst of the land.
9In my ears hath Jehovah of hosts revealed it:
Surely, the many houses shall become a desolation;
The great and the fair ones, no one shall inhabit.
10Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield but one bath,
And a chomer of seed shall produce an ephah.
11Wo unto them that rise up early in the morning to follow after strong drink;
Who sit late in the evening, that the wine may inflame them:
12And the lyre, and the harp, the tabor, and the pipe,
And wine, are in their feasts;
But the work of Jehovah they regard not;
And the operation of his hands they do not perceive.
13Therefore my people goeth into captivity by surprise;
Their nobles die with hunger;
And their multitude are parched up with thirst.
14Therefore bath Hades opened its jaws with greediness;
And hath stretched open its mouth without measure:
And down go her nobility, and her multitude;
And her busy throng, and all that exult in her.
15And the mean man shall be bowed down, and the great man shall be humbled;
And the eyes of the haughty are humbled.
16But Jehovah of hosts shall be exalted in judgment;
And the Holy God shall be sanctified in righteousness.
17Then shall the sheep feed, as upon their own pasture; And in the desolate possessions of the rich shall strange flocks graze.
18Wo unto them that draw punishment along with a rope of vice;
And destruction as with a cart-rope.
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 to pass, that we may know it.
20Wo unto them that call evil good, and good evil;
Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness;
Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.
21Wo unto them that are wise in their own eyes;
And prudent in their own conceit.
22Wo unto them that are powerful to drink wine;
And men of might to mingle strong drink.
23Who justify the guilty for reward,
And take away the righteousness of the righteous from him.
24Therefore as the flame of fire devoureth the stubble,
And as the dry grass sinketh down into the flame;
So their root shall be as rottenness,
And their blossom shall go up like the dust:
Because they have despised the law of Jehovah of hosts;
And scornfully rejected the word of the Holy One of Israel.
25Therefore is the anger of Jehovah kindled against his people;
And he hath stretched out his hand against them,
And smitten them; and the mountains trembled;
And their carcases became as the mire in the midst of the streets.
For all this his anger is not turned away;
But his hand is still stretched out.
26And he will erect a standard for the nations afar off;
And he will hiss unto them from the end of the earth;
And behold, with speed swiftly shall they come.
27None among them is faint, and none stumbleth;
No one slumbereth, and no one sleepeth:
Neither is the girdle of their loins loosed,
Nor the latchet of their shoes torn off.
28Whose arrows are sharpened,
And all their bows are bent:
The hoofs of their horses are counted like unto the flint;
And their wheels unto the whirlwind.
29Their roaring is like that of the lioness;
They roar like the young lions:
They rage, and seize the prey;
They bear it away, and no one doth rescue.
30In that day shall they roar against them, like the roaring of the sea;
And if one look unto the land, behold there darkness;
Perplexity mid light;
It becomes dark in the clouds thereof.
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Isaiah 5: TEG
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Translated by Rev John Jones (Ioan Tegid).Published at Oxford in 1830, second edition 1842.
Isaiah 5
5
The Song of the Vineyard
1 #
Mt 21.33; Mk 12.1; Lk 20.9 Listen while I sing you this song,
a song of my friend and his vineyard:
My friend had a vineyard
on a very fertile hill.
2He dug the soil and cleared it of stones;
he planted the finest vines.
He built a tower to guard them,
dug a pit for treading the grapes.
He waited for the grapes to ripen,
but every grape was sour.
3So now my friend says, “You people who live in Jerusalem and Judah, judge between my vineyard and me. 4Is there anything I failed to do for it? Then why did it produce sour grapes and not the good grapes I expected?
5“This is what I am going to do to my vineyard; I will take away the hedge round it, break down the wall that protects it, and let wild animals eat it and trample it down. 6I will let it be overgrown with weeds. I will not prune the vines or hoe the ground; instead I will let briars and thorns cover it. I will even forbid the clouds to let rain fall on it.”
7Israel is the vineyard of the LORD Almighty;
the people of Judah are the vines he planted.
He expected them to do what was good,
but instead they committed murder.
He expected them to do what was right,
but their victims cried out for justice.
The Evil that People Do
8You are doomed! You buy more houses and fields to add to those you already have. Soon there will be nowhere for anyone else to live, and you alone will live in the land. 9I have heard the LORD Almighty say, “All these big, fine houses will be empty ruins. 10The grapevines growing on ten hectares of land will yield only eight litres of wine. 180 litres of seed will produce only eighteen litres of corn.”
11You are doomed! You get up early in the morning to start drinking, and you spend long evenings getting drunk. 12At your feasts you have harps and tambourines and flutes — and wine. But you don't understand what the LORD is doing, 13and so you will be carried away as prisoners. Your leaders will starve to death, and the common people will die of thirst. 14The world of the dead is hungry for them, and it opens its mouth wide. It gulps down the nobles of Jerusalem along with the noisy crowd of common people.
15Everyone will be disgraced, and all who are proud will be humbled. 16But the LORD Almighty shows his greatness by doing what is right, and he reveals his holiness by judging his people. 17In the ruins of the cities lambs will eat grass and young goats will find pasture.#5.17 Verse 17 in Hebrew is unclear.
18You are doomed! You are unable to break free from your sins. 19You say, “Let the LORD hurry up and do what he says he will, so that we can see it. Let Israel's holy God carry out his plans; let's see what he has in mind.”
20You are doomed! You call evil good and call good evil. You turn darkness into light and light into darkness. You make what is bitter sweet, and what is sweet you make bitter.
21You are doomed! You think you are wise, so very clever.
22You are doomed! Heroes of the wine bottle! Brave and fearless when it comes to mixing drinks! 23But for just a bribe you let the guilty go free, and you prevent the innocent from getting justice. 24So now, just as straw and dry grass shrivel and burn in the fire, your roots will rot and your blossoms will dry up and blow away, because you have rejected what the LORD Almighty, Israel's holy God, has taught us. 25The LORD is angry with his people and has stretched out his hand to punish them. The mountains will shake, and the bodies of those who die will be left in the streets like rubbish. Yet even then the LORD's anger will not be ended, but his hand will still be stretched out to punish.
26The LORD gives a signal to call for a distant nation.#5.26 Probable text a distant nation; Hebrew distant nations. He whistles for them to come from the ends of the earth. And here they come, swiftly, quickly! 27None of them grows tired; none of them stumbles. They never doze or sleep. Not a belt is loose; not a sandal strap is broken. 28Their arrows are sharp, and their bows are ready to shoot. Their horses' hooves are as hard as flint, and their chariot-wheels turn like a whirlwind. 29The soldiers roar like lions that have killed an animal and are carrying it off where no one can take it away from them.
30When that day comes, they will roar over Israel as loudly as the sea. Look at this country! Darkness and distress! The light is swallowed by darkness.
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Good News Bible. Scripture taken from the Good News Bible (r) (Today's English Version Second Edition, UK/British Edition). Copyright © 1992 British & Foreign Bible Society. Used by permission.