Oh, sinful nation, People weighed down with guilt, Offspring of evildoers, Sons who act corruptly! They have abandoned the Lord, They have despised the Holy One of Israel, They have turned away from Him.

Invitation to Debate

“Come now, and let us debate your case,” Says the Lord, “Though your sins are as scarlet, They shall become as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be like wool.

But wrongdoers and sinners together will be broken, And those who abandon the Lord will come to an end.

The expression of their faces testifies against them, And they display their sin like Sodom; They do not even conceal it. Woe to them! For they have done evil to themselves.

Parable of the Vineyard

Let me sing now for my beloved A song of my beloved about His vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill.

Woe to those who drag wrongdoing with the cords of deceit, And sin as if with cart ropes;

He touched my mouth with it and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and your guilt is taken away and atonement is made for your sin.”

Trials to Come for Judah

The Lord will bring on you, on your people, and on your father’s house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim separated from Judah—the days of the king of Assyria.”

So the Lord cuts off head and tail from Israel, Both palm branch and bulrush in a single day.

And the Light of Israel will become a fire and Israel’s Holy One a flame, And it will burn and devour his thorns and his briars in a single day.

Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, Cruel, with fury and burning anger, To make the land a desolation; And He will exterminate its sinners from it.

Even the juniper trees rejoice over you, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, ‘Since you have been laid low, no tree cutter comes up against us.’

Take your harp, wander around the city, You forgotten prostitute; Pluck the strings skillfully, sing many songs, That you may be remembered.

Lord, You will establish peace for us, Since You have also performed for us all our works.

On that day, “A vineyard of beauty, sing of it!

Therefore through this Jacob’s wrongdoing will be forgiven; And this will be the full price of the pardoning of his sin: When he makes all the altar stones like pulverized chalk stones; When Asherim and incense altars will not stand.

For all the tables are full of filthy vomit, without a single clean place.

Judah Warned against Egyptian Alliance

“Woe to the rebellious children,” declares the Lord, “Who execute a plan, but not Mine, And make an alliance, but not of My Spirit, In order to add sin to sin;

Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says: “Since you have rejected this word And have put your trust in oppression and crookedness, and have relied on them,

For on that day every person will reject his silver idols and his gold idols, which your hands have made for you as a sin.

Sinners in Zion are terrified; Trembling has seized the godless. “Who among us can live with the consuming fire? Who among us can live with everlasting burning?”

Behold, for my own welfare I had great bitterness; But You have kept my soul from the pit of nothingness, For You have hurled all my sins behind Your back.

“Speak kindly to Jerusalem; And call out to her, that her warfare has ended, That her guilt has been removed, That she has received of the Lord’s hand Double for all her sins.”

Sing to the Lord a new song, Sing His praise from the end of the earth! You who go down to the sea, and all that is in it; You islands, and those who live on them.

Let the wilderness and its cities raise their voices, The settlements which Kedar inhabits. Let the inhabitants of Sela sing aloud, Let them shout for joy from the tops of the mountains.