Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

^2 (1) Shepherd of Isra’el, listen!
You who lead Yosef like a flock,
you whose throne is on the k’ruvim,
shine out!
^3 (2) Before Efrayim, Binyamin and M’nasheh,
rouse your power; and come to save us.
^4 (3) God, restore us!
Make your face shine, and we will be saved.

^5 (4) Adonai, God of armies, how long
will you be angry with your people’s prayers?
^6 (5) You have fed them tears as their bread
and made them drink tears in abundance.
^7 (6) You make our neighbors fight over us,
and our enemies mock us.
^8 (7) God of armies, restore us!
Make your face shine, and we will be saved.

^9 (8) You brought a vine out of Egypt,
you expelled the nations and planted it,
^10 (9) you cleared a space for it;
then it took root firmly and filled the land.
^11 (10) The mountains were covered with its shade,
the mighty cedars with its branches;
^12 (11) It put out branches as far as the sea
and shoots to the [Euphrates] River.

^13 (12) Why did you break down [the vineyard’s] wall,
so that all passing by can pluck [its fruit]?
^14 (13) The boar from the forest tears it apart;
wild creatures from the fields feed on it.

^15 (14) God of armies, please come back!
Look from heaven, see, and tend this vine!
^16 (15) Protect what your right hand planted,
the son you made strong for yourself.
^17 (16) It is burned by fire, it is cut down;
they perish at your frown of rebuke.
^18 (17) Help the man at your right hand,
the son of man you made strong for yourself.

^19 (18) Then we won’t turn away from you —
if you revive us, we will call on your name.
^20 (19) Adonai, God of armies, restore us!
Make your face shine, and we will be saved.

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!