Isaiah 5
Complete Jewish Bible
5 I want to sing a song for someone I love,
a song about my loved one and his vineyard.
My loved one had a vineyard
on a very fertile hill.
2 He dug up its stones and cleared them away,
planted it with the choicest vines,
built a watchtower in the middle of it,
and carved out in its rock a winepress.
He expected it to produce good grapes,
but it produced only sour, wild grapes.
3 Now, citizens of Yerushalayim and people of Y’hudah,
judge between me and my vineyard.
4 What more could I have done for my vineyard
that I haven’t already done in it?
So why, when I expected good grapes,
did it produce sour, wild grapes?
5 Now come, I will tell you
what I will do to my vineyard:
I will remove its hedge,
and [its grapes] will be eaten up;
I will break through its fence,
and [its vines] will be trampled down.
6 I will let it go to waste:
it will be neither pruned nor hoed,
but overgrown with briars and thorns.
I will also order the clouds
not to let rain fall on it.
7 Now the vineyard of Adonai-Tzva’ot
is the house of Isra’el,
and the men of Y’hudah
are the plant he delighted in.
So he expected justice,
but look — bloodshed! —
and righteousness, but listen —
cries of distress!
8 Woe to those who add house to house
and join field to field,
until there’s no room for anyone else,
and you live in splendor alone on your land.
9 Adonai-Tzva’ot said in my ears,
“Many houses will be brought to ruin,
large, magnificent ones left empty;
10 for a ten-acre vineyard will produce
only five gallons of wine,
and seed from five bushels of grain
will yield but half a bushel.”
11 Woe to those who get up early
to pursue intoxicating liquor;
who stay up late at night,
until wine inflames them.
12 They have lutes and lyres, drums and flutes,
and wine at their parties;
but they pay no attention to how Adonai works
and never look at what his hands have made.
13 For such lack of knowledge
my people go into exile;
this is also why their respected men starve
and their masses are parched from thirst.
14 Therefore Sh’ol has enlarged itself
and opened its limitless jaws —
and down go their nobles and masses,
along with their noise and revels.
15 The masses are lowered, the nobles are humbled —
proud looks will be brought down.
16 But Adonai-Tzva’ot is exalted through justice,
God the Holy One is consecrated through righteousness.
17 Then lambs will be able to feed
as if they were in their own pasture,
and those wandering through will eat
from the ruined fields of the overfed.
18 Woe to those who begin by pulling
at transgression with a thread,
but end by dragging sin along
as if with a cart rope.
19 They say, “We want God to speed up his work,
to hurry it along, so we can see it!
We want the Holy One of Isra’el’s plan
to come true right now, so we can be sure of it!”
20 Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who change darkness into light
and light into darkness,
who change bitter into sweet
and sweet into bitter!
21 Woe to those seeing themselves as wise,
esteeming themselves as clever.
22 Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine,
men whose power goes to mixing strong drinks,
23 who acquit the guilty for bribes
but deny justice to the righteous!
24 Therefore, as fire licks up the stubble,
and the chaff is consumed in the flame;
so their root will rot,
and their flowers scatter like dust;
because they have rejected the Torah
of Adonai-Tzva’ot,
they have despised the word
of the Holy One of Isra’el.
25 This is why Adonai’s anger blazed up against his people,
why he stretched out his hand against them and struck them
[so hard that] the hills shook,
and corpses lay like trash in the streets.
Even after all this, his anger remains,
his upraised hand still threatens.
26 He will give a signal to faraway nations,
he will whistle for them to come
from the ends of the earth;
and here they come, so fast! —
27 none of them tired or stumbling,
none of them sleeping or drowsy,
none with a loose belt,
none with a broken sandal-strap.
28 Their arrows are sharp,
all their bows are strung,
their horses’ hoofs are like flint,
and their [chariot] wheels like a whirlwind.
29 They will roar like lions —
yes, roaring like young lions,
they growl and seize the prey
and carry it off, with no one to rescue.
30 On that day they will growl at them,
like the sea when it growls —
and when one looks toward land,
one sees darkness closing in;
the light is dissipated
in the obscuring overcast.
Isaiah 5
New Century Version
Israel, the Lord’s Vineyard
5 Now I will sing for my friend a song about his vineyard.
My friend had a vineyard
on a hill with very rich soil.
2 He dug and cleared the field of stones
and planted the best grapevines there.
He built a tower in the middle of it
and cut out a winepress as well.
He hoped good grapes would grow there,
but only bad ones grew.
3 My friend says, “You people living in Jerusalem,
and you people of Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard.
4 What more could I have done for my vineyard
than I have already done?
Although I expected good grapes to grow,
why were there only bad ones?
5 Now I will tell you
what I will do to my vineyard:
I will remove the hedge,
and it will be burned.
I will break down the stone wall,
and it will be walked on.
6 I will ruin my field.
It will not be trimmed or hoed,
and weeds and thorns will grow there.
I will command the clouds
not to rain on it.”
7 The vineyard belonging to the Lord All-Powerful
is the nation of Israel;
the garden that he loves
is the people of Judah.
He looked for justice, but there was only killing.
He hoped for right living, but there were only cries of pain.
8 How terrible it will be for you who add more houses to your houses
and more fields to your fields
until there is no room left for other people.
Then you are left alone in the land.
9 The Lord All-Powerful said this to me:
“The fine houses will be destroyed;
the large and beautiful houses will be left empty.
10 At that time a ten-acre vineyard will make only six gallons of wine,
and ten bushels of seed will grow only half a bushel of grain.”
11 How terrible it will be for people who rise early in the morning
to look for strong drink,
who stay awake late at night,
becoming drunk with wine.
12 At their parties they have lyres, harps,
tambourines, flutes, and wine.
They don’t see what the Lord has done
or notice the work of his hands.
13 So my people will be captured and taken away,
because they don’t really know me.
All the great people will die of hunger,
and the common people will die of thirst.
14 So the place of the dead wants more and more people,
and it opens wide its mouth.
Jerusalem’s important people and common people will go down into it,
with their happy and noisy ones.
15 So the common people and the great people will be brought down;
those who are proud will be humbled.
16 The Lord All-Powerful will receive glory by judging fairly;
the holy God will show himself holy by doing what is right.
17 Then the sheep will go anywhere they want,
and lambs will feed on the land that rich people once owned.
18 How terrible it will be for those people!
They pull their guilt and sins behind them
as people pull wagons with ropes.
19 They say, “Let God hurry;
let him do his work soon
so we may see it.
Let the plan of the Holy One of Israel happen soon
so that we will know what it is.”
20 How terrible it will be for people who call good things bad
and bad things good,
who think darkness is light
and light is darkness,
who think sour is sweet
and sweet is sour.
21 How terrible it will be for people who think they are wise
and believe they are clever.
22 How terrible it will be for people who are famous for drinking wine
and are champions at mixing drinks.
23 They take money to set the guilty free
and don’t allow good people to be judged fairly.
24 They will be destroyed
just as fire burns straw or dry grass.
They will be destroyed
like a plant whose roots rot
and whose flower dies and blows away like dust.
They have refused to obey the teachings of the Lord All-Powerful
and have hated the message from the Holy God of Israel.
25 So the Lord has become very angry with his people,
and he has raised his hand to punish them.
Even the mountains are frightened.
Dead bodies lie in the streets like garbage.
But the Lord is still angry;
his hand is still raised to strike down the people.
26 He raises a banner for the nations far away.
He whistles to call those people from the ends of the earth.
Look! The enemy comes quickly!
27 Not one of them becomes tired or falls down.
Not one of them gets sleepy and falls asleep.
Their weapons are close at hand,
and their sandal straps are not broken.
28 Their arrows are sharp,
and all of their bows are ready to shoot.
The horses’ hoofs are hard as rocks,
and their chariot wheels move like a whirlwind.
29 Their shout is like the roar of a lion;
it is loud like a young lion.
They growl as they grab their captives.
There is no one to stop them from taking their captives away.
30 On that day they will roar
like the waves of the sea.
And when people look at the land,
they will see only darkness and pain;
all light will become dark in this thick cloud.
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
