Isaiah 5:1-23 ▼

1 Let me sing now for my beloved, a song of my beloved regarding his vineyard: Unto my beloved there was a vineyard, a son of fatness on a hill.

2 And he dug it and cleared it of stones, and he planted it with the choicest vine; and he built a tower in its midst, and also a winepress he hewed out in it. And he waited for it to make grapes, and it made wild grapes.

3 “And now, O dweller of Jerusalem and man of Judah, judge please, between Me and between My vineyard.

4 What could have been done more for My vineyard, that I have not done in it? Why—I waited for it to make grapes—and it made wild grapes?

5 And now I will let you? know what I am going to do to My vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be consumed and the breaking down of its wall, and it will be free for trampling.

6 And I will set it as a waste—it will not be pruned nor hoed, and there will come up brier and thorn; and also the clouds I will command against raining on it with rain.”

7 For the vineyard of YHWH of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the plant of His delight; and He looked for justice, and behold, bloodshed—for righteousness, and behold, outcry.

8 Woe to those joining house to house; field to field they bring near, until there is no place to stand, and you? are made to dwell by yourselves alone in the midst of the land!

9 In my hearing, YHWH of Hosts says: “Surely many houses will be a desolation—great and beautiful ones without one dwelling!

10 For a ten yoke vineyard will yield one bath, and a homer of seed will yield an ephah.

11 Woe to those rising early in the morning to pursue strong drink, tarrying into the twilight as wine inflames them!

12 Are the lyre and harp and tambourine, and flute and wine, are at their feasts; and the work of YHWH they do not regard, and the work of His hands they do not see.

13 Therefore my people have gone into captivity from lack of knowledge; and its honored men go hungry, and its multitude is parched with thirst.

14 Therefore Sheol has enlarged her soul and has opened her mouth beyond measure; her nobles will go down—and her crowd and her revelers and exulting—into her.

15 And mankind is bent down, and each man is brought low, and the eyes of the haughty will be brought down.

16 YHWH of Hosts will be exalted in justice, and the Holy God will show Himself holy in righteousness.

17 And the lambs will graze as in their pasture, and in the waste places of the fat ones, sojourners will eat.

18 Woe to those drawing out iniquity with cords of falsehood, and sin with a rope of the cart,

19 saying, “Let Him hurry, let Him hurry His work, that we may see it! Let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come, that we may know it!”

20 Woe to those saying to evil “Good,” and to good “Evil,” putting darkness for light and light for darkness, putting bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!

21 Woe to the wise ones in their own eyes, and before their own faces discerning.

22 Woe to the mighty at drinking wine and men of strength in mixing strong drink,

23 those declaring right the wicked for a bribe, and justice for the righteous ones they turn aside from him.