Isaiah 5:8-23 ▼

8 How horrible it will be for you who acquire house after house and buy field after field until there's nothing left and you have to live by yourself in the land.

9 With my own ears I heard the LORD of Armies say, |Many houses will become empty. Large, beautiful houses will be without people to live in them.

10 A ten-acre vineyard will produce only six gallons of wine, and two quarts of seed will produce only four quarts of grain.|

11 How horrible it will be for those who get up early to look for a drink, who sit up late until they are drunk from wine.

12 At their feasts there are lyres and harps, tambourines and flutes, and wine. Yet, they don't pay attention to what the LORD is doing or see what his hands have done.

13 |My people will go into exile because they don't understand what I'm doing. Honored men will starve, and common people will be parched with thirst.|

14 That is why the grave's appetite increases. It opens its mouth very wide so that honored people and common people will go down into it. Those who are noisy and joyous will go down into it.

15 People will be brought down. Everyone will be humbled. And the eyes of arrogant people will be humbled.

16 The LORD of Armies will be honored when he judges. The holy God will show himself to be holy when he does what is right.

17 Then lambs will graze as if they were in their own pasture, and foreigners will eat among the ruins of the rich.

18 How horrible it will be for those who string people along with lies and empty promises, whose lives are sinful.

19 They say, |Let God hurry and quickly do his work so that we may see what he has in mind. Let the plan of the Holy One of Israel happen quickly so that we may understand what he is doing.|

20 How horrible it will be for those who call evil good and good evil, who turn darkness into light and light into darkness, who turn what is bitter into something sweet and what is sweet into something bitter.

21 How horrible it will be for those who think they are wise and consider themselves to be clever.

22 How horrible it will be for those who are heroes at drinking wine, who are champions at mixing drinks,

23 who declare the guilty innocent for a bribe, who take away the rights of righteous people.