Isaiah 5:8–30

The Evil That Men Do

⁸You are doomed! You buy more houses and fields to add to those you already have. Soon there will be nowhere for anyone else to live, and you alone will live in the land. ⁹I have heard the Lord Almighty say, “All these big, fine houses will be empty ruins. ¹⁰The grapevines growing on ten hectares of land will yield only eight litres of wine. A hundred and eighty litres of seed will produce only eighteen litres of corn.”

¹¹You are doomed! You get up early in the morning to start drinking, and you spend long evenings getting drunk. ¹²At your feasts you have harps and tambourines and flutes—and wine. But you don’t understand what the Lord is doing, ¹³and so you will be carried away as prisoners. Your leaders will starve to death, and the common people will die of thirst. ¹⁴The world of the dead is hungry for them, and it opens its mouth wide. It gulps down the nobles of Jerusalem along with the noisy crowd of common people.

¹⁵Everyone will be disgraced, and all who are proud will be humbled. ¹⁶But the Lord Almighty shows his greatness by doing what is right, and he reveals his holiness by judging his people. ¹⁷In the ruins of the cities lambs will eat grass and young goats will find pasture.^h

¹⁸You are doomed! You are unable to break free from your sins. ¹⁹You say, “Let the Lord hurry up and do what he says he will, so that we can see it. Let Israel’s holy God carry out his plans; let’s see what he has in mind.”

²⁰You are doomed! You call evil good and call good evil. You turn darkness into light and light into darkness. You make what is bitter sweet, and what is sweet you make bitter.

²¹You are doomed! You think you are wise, so very clever.

²²You are doomed! Heroes of the wine bottle! Brave and fearless when it comes to mixing drinks! ²³But for just a bribe you let the guilty go free, and you prevent the innocent from getting justice. ²⁴So now, just as straw and dry grass shrivel and burn in the fire, your roots will rot and your blossoms will dry up and blow away, because you have rejected what the Lord Almighty, Israel’s holy God, has taught us. ²⁵The Lord is angry with his people and has stretched out his hand to punish them. The mountains will shake, and the bodies of those who die will be left in the streets like rubbish. Yet even then the Lord’s anger will not be ended, but his hand will still be stretched out to punish.

²⁶The Lord gives a signal to call for a distant nation.ⁱ He whistles for them to come from the ends of the earth. And here they come, swiftly, quickly! ²⁷None of them grows tired; none of them stumbles. They never doze or sleep. Not a belt is loose; not a sandal strap is broken. ²⁸Their arrows are sharp, and their bows are ready to shoot. Their horses’ hooves are as hard as flint, and their chariot-wheels turn like a whirlwind. ²⁹The soldiers roar like lions that have killed an animal and are carrying it off where no one can take it away from them.

³⁰When that day comes, they will roar over Israel as loudly as the sea. Look at this country! Darkness and distress! The light is swallowed by darkness.