Isaiah 5:1-17

Common English Bible

Song of the vineyard

5 Let me sing for my loved one
    a love song for his vineyard.
My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside.
²He dug it,
    cleared away its stones,
    planted it with excellent vines,
    built a tower inside it,
    and dug out a wine vat in it.
He expected it to grow good grapes—
    but it grew rotten grapes.
³So now, you who live in Jerusalem, you people of Judah,
    judge between me and my vineyard:
⁴What more was there to do for my vineyard
    that I haven’t done for it?
When I expected it to grow good grapes,
    why did it grow rotten grapes?
⁵Now let me tell you what I’m doing to my vineyard.
I’m removing its hedge,
    so it will be destroyed.
I’m breaking down its walls,
    so it will be trampled.
⁶I’ll turn it into a ruin;
    it won’t be pruned or hoed,
    and thorns and thistles will grow up.
I will command the clouds not to rain on it.
⁷The vineyard of the Lord of heavenly forces is the house of Israel,
    and the people of Judah are the plantings in which God delighted.
God expected justice, but there was bloodshed;
    righteousness, but there was a cry of distress!

Sayings of doom

⁸Doom to those who acquire house after house,
    who annex field to field until there is no more space left
    and only you live alone in the land.
⁹I heard the Lord of heavenly forces say this:^[a]
Many houses will become total ruins,
    large, fine houses, with no one living in them.
¹⁰Ten acres of vineyard
    will produce just one bath,^[b]
    and a homer of seed
        will produce only an ephah.

¹¹Doom to those who wake up early in the morning to run after beer,
    to those who stay up late, lit up by wine.
¹²They party with lyre and harp, tambourine, flute, and wine;
    but they ignore the Lord’s work;
        they can’t see what God is doing.

¹³Therefore, my people go into exile since they didn’t understand—
    their officials are dying of hunger;
    so many of them are dried up with thirst.
¹⁴Therefore, the grave^[c] opens wide its jaws,
    opens its mouth beyond all bounds,
    and the splendid multitudes will go down, with all their uproar and cheering.
¹⁵Humanity will be humiliated;
    each person laid low,
    the eyes of the exalted laid low.
¹⁶But the Lord of heavenly forces will be exalted in justice,
    and the holy God will show himself holy in righteousness.
¹⁷Lambs will graze as if in their pasture;
    young goats^[d] will feed among the ruins of the rich.^[e]

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Footnotes

Isaiah 5:9 Heb lacks say this.
Isaiah 5:10 One bath is approximately twenty quarts, the same as an ephah; one homer contains ten ephahs (or baths) of grain.
Isaiah 5:14 Heb Sheol
Isaiah 5:17 Or strangers
Isaiah 5:17 Or Calves and young goats will feed on the ruins; Heb uncertain