A bad vineyard
5
📚✭✭Now I will sing to my lovedone a song of my beloved
concerning his vineyard.
My loved one has a vineyard
in a very fruitful hill;
2 📚✭And he dug it up,
and cleared away its stones,
and planted it with
the choicest vine,
and built a tower in
the middle of it,
and also made a winepress in it.
Then he looked for it
to produce grapes,
and it produced wild grapes.
3 📚“And now, O inhabitants of
Jerusalem,
and men of Judah,
please judge between me
and my vineyard.
4 📚What more could have been done
to my vineyard that
I have not done in it?
Why then, when I looked for it
to produce grapes,
did it produce wild grapes?
5 📚✭Come now,
I will tell you what I am going
to do to my vineyard.
I will take away its hedge,
and it will be devoured.
And I will break down its wall,
and it will be trampled down.
6 📚And I will make it a desolation.
It will not be pruned, or dug,
but briars and thorns will come up.
I will also command the clouds to rain no rain on it”.
7 📚✭For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel,
and the men of Judah are his pleasant plant.
And he looked for justice,
but saw oppression;
for righteousness,
but heard a cry of distress.
Woe! Woe! Woe!
8 📚✭✭Woe to those who add
house to house,
who join field to field,
until there is no space left,
so that they may live alone
in the midst of the land!
9 📚In my ears the LORD of hosts said:
“Certainly many great and beautiful
houses will be desolate,
without inhabitant.
10 📚Yes, ten acres✭ of vineyard will yield
only one bath✭,
and a homer✭ of seed will yield
only an ephah✭”.
11 📚✭Woe to those who rise up
early in the morning,
that they may go after
strong drink,
and who continue until night,
till wine inflames them!
12 📚And the harp, and the lyre,
the tambourine, and flute,
and wine, are in their feasts.
But they do not regard the work
of the LORD,
nor consider the work of his hands.
13 📚Therefore my people go
into captivity,
because they have
no knowledge,
and their honourable men are
famished,
and their masses are dried up
from thirst.
14 📚Therefore hell✭ has enlarged itself,
and opened its mouth without limit;
and their glory, and their masses,
and their pomp, and he who rejoices,
will descend into it.
15 📚✭And the common man will be
brought down,
and the mighty man will be abased,
and the eyes of the arrogant will be
brought low.
16 📚✭But the LORD of hosts will be
exalted in judgment,
and the holy God will be
hallowed in righteousness.
17 📚✭Then the lambs will graze
as in their pasture,
and strangers will eat
in the waste places of the rich.
18 📚✭✭Woe to those who drag
wickedness along with cords
of falsehood,
and sin as if with a cart rope.
19 📚✭They say, “Let him hurry,
and hasten his work,
so that we can see it;
and let the plan of the Holy One
of Israel draw near and come,
so that we can know it”.
20 📚✭Woe to those who call
evil good, and good evil;
who put darkness for light,
and light for darkness;
who put bitter for sweet,
and sweet for bitter.
21 📚✭Woe to those who are wise
in their own eyes,
and prudent in their own sight.
22 📚✭Woe to those who are heroes
in drinking wine and champions
in mixing strong drink;
23 📚Who declare the wicked
innocent for a bribe,
and take away the justice
of the righteous from him,
24 📚✭Therefore as the fire
devours the stubble,
and the flame consumes
the chaff,
so their root will
become rotten,
and their blossom will
go up like dust;
because they have cast away
the law of the LORD of hosts,
and despised the word of
the Holy One of Israel.
25 📚Therefore the anger of
the LORD burns against
his people,
and he has stretched out his hand
against them and struck them;
and the hills trembled,
and their corpses were
torn in the middle of the streets.
For all this his anger is not
turned away,
but his hand is
stretched out still✭.
26 📚✭And he will lift up a banner
to the nations from afar,
and will whistle to them from
the end of the earth; and,
look, they come speedily, swiftly!
27 📚None of them will be weary
or stumble. No one will slumber
or sleep;
nor will the belt around their
waist be loosened,
nor the strap of their
sandals be broken.
28 📚Their arrows are sharp,
and all their bows are bent.
Their horses’ hooves will seem like flint,
and their wheels like a whirlwind.
29 📚Their roaring will be
like a lion.
They will roar like young lions.
Yes, they will roar,
and take hold of the prey,
and will carry it away safely,
and no one will rescue it.
30 📚And in that day they will roar
against them like the roaring
of the sea.
And if one looks
toward the land,
darkness and sorrow
appear,
and the light is darkened
by its clouds.