Isaiah 5

1 I will now sing for my beloved the song of my beloved about his vineyard; my beloved had a vineyard in a fertile corner. 2And he fenced it in, and he cleared it of stones, and he planted it with the choicest vines, and he built a tower in its midst, and also a vat he hewed therein; and he hoped to produce grapes, but it produced wild berries. 3And now, dwellers of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge now between me and between my vineyard. 4What more could I have done for my vineyard that I did not do in it? Why did I hope to produce grapes and it produced wild berries? 5And now, I will inform you what I am going to do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be eaten up; breach its walls, and it shall be trampled. 6And I will make it a desolation; it shall neither be pruned nor hoed, and the shamir and desolation will come up [over it]; and I will command the clouds not to rain upon it. 7For the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the House of Israel, and the people of Judah are the plant of His joy; and He hoped for justice, and, behold, there was injustice; for righteousness, and behold, an outcry. 8Woe to those who join a house to a house; a field to a field they draw near; until there is no place, and you will be settled alone in the midst of the land. 9In my ears [spoke] the Lord of Hosts, “Truly, great houses shall become desolate, yea, large ones and good ones, without inhabitants. 10For ten acres of vineyard will produce one bath, and the seed of a homer shall produce an ephah. 11Woe to those who rise early in the morning; they pursue strong wine. They sit until late in the evening; wine inflames them. 12And there are harp and lute, tambourine and flute, and wine at their drinking feasts; and the work of the Lord they do not regard, and the deed of His hands they have not seen. 13Therefore, My people shall go into exile because of lack of knowledge, and its esteemed ones shall die of hunger, and its multitude shall be parched from thirst. 14Therefore, the nether-world has expanded itself and opened its mouth without measure, and her splendor and her populace and multitudes, shall descend and those who rejoice therein. 15And man shall be humbled, and man shall be brought low, and the eyes of the haughty shall be brought low. 16And the Lord of Hosts will be exalted in judgment, and the Holy God shall be hallowed with equity. 17And lambs shall graze at their wont, and sojourners shall eat the ruins of the fat ones. 18Woe to those who draw the iniquity with ropes of nothingness, and like cart ropes is the sin. 19Those who say, “Let Him hurry; let Him hasten His deed, so that we may see; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel approach and come.” 20Woe to those who say of the evil that it is good and of the good that it is evil; who present darkness as light and light as darkness, who present bitter as sweet and sweet as bitter. 21Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and in their own estimation, of profound understanding. 22Woe to the heroes to drink wine and valiant men to mix strong wine. 23Those who exonerate the guilty one for reward of a bribe, and the innocence of the innocent they take away from him. 24Therefore, as a flame of fire consumes stubble, and a flame shrivels straw, their root shall be like rot, and their blossom shall go up like dust, for they have rejected the law of the Lord of Hosts and the word of the Holy One of Israel they have despised. 25Therefore, the Lord has become wroth with His people, and He has stretched forth His hand upon them and has struck them, and the mountains have quaked, and their corpses were like spittle in the midst of the streets; with all this, His anger has not turned back, and His hand is still outstretched. 26And He shall raise an ensign to the nations from afar, and He shall whistle to him from the end of the earth, and behold, quickly, swiftly he shall come. 27None is weary or stumbles among them, he shall neither slumber nor sleep; the belt around his waist shall not open up, nor shall a thong of his shoes be torn. 28One whose arrows are sharpened, and all his bows are bent, the hoofs of his horses are regarded like flint, and his wheels like the tempest. 29He has a roar like a lion; he will roar like the lion cubs, and he will growl and lay hold of prey, and he will retrieve it, and no one will save it. 30And he shall growl over it on that day like the growling of the sea, and he shall look to the land and behold darkness; the distressed one and the light shall darken in its eclipse.