Isaiah 5
5
1 I will sing to my beloved the canticle of my paternal cousin, about his vineyard. A vineyard was made for my beloved, at the horn in the son of oil.
2 And he fenced it in, and he picked the stones out of it, and he planted it with the best vines, and he built a tower in the middle of it, and he set up a winepress within it. And he expected it to produce grapes, but it produced wild vines.
3 Now then, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah: judge between me and my vineyard.
4 What more should I have done for my vineyard that I did not do for it? Should I not have expected it to produce grapes, though it produced wild vines?
5 And now, I will reveal to you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away its fence, and it will be plundered. I will pull down its wall, and it will be trampled.
6 And I will make it desolate. It will not be pruned, and it will not be dug. And briers and thorns will rise up. And I will command the clouds not to rain upon it.
7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel. And the man of Judah is his delightful seedling. And I expected that he would do judgment, and behold iniquity, and that he would do justice, and behold an outcry.
8 Woe to you who join house to house, and who combine field to field, even to the limits of the place! Do you intend to live alone in the midst of the earth?
9 These things are in my ears, says the Lord of hosts. Otherwise, many houses, great and beautiful, will become desolate, without an inhabitant.
10 Then ten acres of vineyard will produce one small bottle of wine, and thirty measures of seed will produce three measures of grain.
11 Woe to you who rise up in the morning to pursue drunkenness, and to drink even until evening, so as to be inflamed with wine.
12 Harp and lyre and timbrel and pipe, as well as wine, are at your feasts. But you do not respect the work of the Lord, nor do you consider the works of his hands.
13 Because of this, my people have been led away as captives, for they did not have knowledge, and their nobles have passed away from famine, and their multitudes have dried up from thirst.
14 For this reason, Hell has expanded its soul, and has opened its mouth without any limits. And their strong ones, and their people, and their exalted and glorious ones will descend into it.
15 And man will be bowed down, and man will be humbled, and the eyes of the exalted will be brought low.
16 And the Lord of hosts will be exalted in judgment, and the holy God will be sanctified in justice.
17 And the lambs will pasture in proper order, and new arrivals will eat from the deserts turned into fertile lands.
18 Woe to you who draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and who draw sin as if with the rope of a cart,
19 and who say: "Let him hurry, and let his work arrive soon, so that we may see it. And let the plan of the Holy One of Israel approach and arrive, so that we may know it."
20 Woe to you who call evil good, and good evil; who substitute darkness for light, and light for darkness; who exchange bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
21 Woe to you who are wise in your own eyes, and prudent in your own sight!
22 Woe to you who are powerful at drinking wine, who are strong men in contriving inebriation!
23 For you justify an impious man in exchange for bribes, and you carry away the justice of a just man from him.
24 Because of this, as the tongue of fire devours stubble, and as the heat of a flame burns it completely, so will their root become like glowing embers, and so will their offshoot ascend like dust. For they have cast aside the law of the Lord of hosts, and they have blasphemed the eloquence of the Holy One of Israel.
25 For this reason, the fury of the Lord has been enraged against his people, and he has extended his hand over them, and he has struck them. And the mountains were disturbed. And their carcasses became like dung in the midst of the streets. After all this, his fury was not turned away; instead, his hand was still extended.
26 And he will lift up a sign to nations far away, and he will whistle to them from the ends of the earth. And behold, they will rush forward speedily.
27 There is no one weak or struggling among them. They will not become drowsy, and they will not sleep. Neither will the belt around their waist be loosened, nor the laces of their boots be broken.
28 Their arrows are sharp, and all their bows are taut. The hoofs of their horses are like flint, and their wheels are like the force of a tempest.
29 Their roaring is like the lion; they will roar like young lions. They will both roar and seize their prey. And they will wrap themselves around it, and there will be no one who can rescue it.
30 And in that day, they will make a noise over it, like the sound of the sea. We will gaze out toward the land, and behold, the darkness of the tribulation, and even the light has been darkened by its gloom.
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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.