Isaiah 3–5

3RD CHAPTER

The Lord’s Judgment on Sinners in Zion

¹See now, the Lord, the Lord of Armies, 

is going to take from Jerusalem and Judah 

every kind of support 

and their entire supply of food and water. 

²⸤He will take their⸥ heroes and soldiers, 

judges and prophets, 

fortunetellers and statesmen, 

³military leaders and civilian leaders, 

counselors, skilled workers, and experts in magic. 

⁴“I will make boys their leaders. 

Children will govern them.” 

⁵People will oppress each other, 

and everyone will oppress his neighbor. 

The young will make fun of the old, 

and common people will make fun of their superiors. 

⁶A person will grab one of his relatives 

from his father’s family and say, 

“You have a coat. 

You’ll be our leader. 

This pile of ruins will be under your control.” 

⁷When that day comes the relative will cry out, 

“I’m not a doctor! 

I don’t have any food or a coat in my home. 

Don’t make me a leader of our family.” 

⁸Jerusalem has stumbled, and Judah has fallen, 

because what they say and what they do is against the Lord. 

They are defiant in his honored presence. 

⁹The look on their faces will be held against them. 

They boast about their sins, 

which are like ⸤those of the people of⸥ Sodom. 

They don’t even bother to hide them. 

How horrible it will be for these people, 

because they have brought disaster on themselves. 

¹⁰Tell the righteous that blessings will come to them. 

They will taste the fruit of their labor. 

¹¹How horrible it will be for the wicked! Disaster will strike them. 

What they have done will be done to them. 

¹²“Children will oppress my people. 

Women will rule them. 

My people, your guides mislead you, 

and you don’t know which way to go.” 

¹³The Lord takes his place in the courtroom. 

He stands to judge his people. 

¹⁴The Lord presents his case to the respected leaders 

and the officials of his people: 

“You have burned down the vineyard! 

Your houses are filled with goods stolen from the poor.” 

¹⁵The Almighty Lord of Armies asks, 

“How can you crush my people 

and grind the faces of the poor ⸤into the ground⸥?” 

¹⁶The Lord adds, 

“The women of Zion are arrogant. 

They walk with their noses in the air, 

making seductive glances, 

taking short little steps, 

jingling the ankle bracelets on their feet.” 

¹⁷The Lord will cause sores ⸤to appear⸥ 

on the heads of the women of Zion, 

and the Lord will make their foreheads bare. 

¹⁸On that day the Lord will take away their fine things: jingling anklets, headbands, crescent-shaped necklaces, ¹⁹pendants, bracelets, scarfs, ²⁰hats, ankle bracelets, blouses, perfume boxes, charms, ²¹signet rings, nose rings, ²²fine robes, coats, shawls, purses, ²³mirrors, underwear, headdresses, and veils. 

²⁴Instead of the smell of perfume, there will be the smell of decay. 

They will wear ropes instead of belts. 

They will have bald heads instead of beautiful hair. 

They will wear sackcloth instead of expensive clothes. 

Their beauty will be scarred.^a

²⁵⸤Women,⸥ your warriors will die in combat. 

Your mighty men will die in battle. 

²⁶The gates of Zion will cry and grieve, 

and Zion will sit on the ground, exhausted. 

4TH CHAPTER

¹When that day comes, seven women will grab one man and say, 

“We’ll eat our own food and provide our own clothes. 

Just let us marry you for your name. 

Take away our disgrace.” 

The Lord’s New Glory for Zion

²When that day comes, the branch of the Lord 

will be beautiful and wonderful. 

The fruit of the land 

will be the pride and joy of Israel’s survivors. 

³Then whoever is left in Zion and whoever remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who is recorded among the living in Jerusalem. ⁴The Lord will wash away the filth of Zion’s people.^aHe will clean bloodstains from Jerusalem with a spirit of judgment and a spirit of burning. ⁵The Lord will create a cloud of smoke during the day and a glowing flame of fire during the night over the whole area of Mount Zion and over the assembly. His glory will cover everything. ⁶It will be a shelter from the heat during the day as well as a refuge and hiding place from storms and rain. 

5TH CHAPTER

The Song about the Vineyard

¹Let me sing a lovesong to my beloved about his vineyard: 

My beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill. 

²He dug it up, removed its stones, 

planted it with the choicest vines, 

built a watchtower in it, 

and made a winepress in it. 

Then he waited for it to produce good grapes, 

but it produced only sour, wild grapes. 

³Now then, you inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judah, 

judge between me and my vineyard! 

⁴What more could have been done for my vineyard 

than what I have already done for it? 

When I waited for it to produce good grapes, 

why did it produce only sour, wild grapes? 

⁵Now then, let me tell you what I will do to my vineyard. 

I will tear away its hedge so that it can be devoured 

and tear down its wall so that it can be trampled. 

⁶I will make it a wasteland. 

It will never be pruned or hoed. 

Thorns and weeds will grow in it, 

and I will command the clouds not to rain on it. 

⁷The vineyard of the Lord of Armies is the nation of Israel, 

and the people of Judah are the garden of his delight. 

He hoped for justice but saw only slaughter, 

for righteousness but heard only cries of distress. 

Six Sins Condemned

⁸How horrible it will be for you 

who acquire house after house and buy field after field 

until there’s nothing left 

and you have to live by yourself in the land. 

⁹With my own ears I heard the Lord of Armies say, 

“Many houses will become empty. 

Large, beautiful houses will be without people to live in them. 

¹⁰A ten-acre vineyard will produce only six gallons of wine, 

and two quarts of seed will produce only four quarts of grain.” 

¹¹How horrible it will be for those 

who get up early to look for a drink, 

who sit up late until they are drunk from wine. 

¹²At their feasts there are lyres and harps, 

tambourines and flutes, and wine. 

Yet, they don’t pay attention to what the Lord is doing 

or see what his hands have done. 

¹³“My people will go into exile 

because they don’t understand what I’m doing. 

Honored men will starve, 

and common people will be parched with thirst.” 

¹⁴That is why the grave’s appetite increases. 

It opens its mouth very wide 

so that honored people and common people will go down into it. 

Those who are noisy and joyous will go down into it. 

¹⁵People will be brought down. Everyone will be humbled. 

And the eyes of arrogant people will be humbled. 

¹⁶The Lord of Armies will be honored when he judges. 

The holy God will show himself to be holy when he does what is right. 

¹⁷Then lambs will graze as if they were in their own pasture, 

and foreigners will eat among the ruins of the rich. 

¹⁸How horrible it will be for those 

who string people along with lies and empty promises, 

whose lives are sinful. 

¹⁹They say, 

“Let God hurry and quickly do his work 

so that we may see what he has in mind. 

Let the plan of the Holy One of Israel happen quickly 

so that we may understand what he is doing.” 

²⁰How horrible it will be for those 

who call evil good and good evil, 

who turn darkness into light and light into darkness, 

who turn what is bitter into something sweet 

and what is sweet into something bitter. 

²¹How horrible it will be for those 

who think they are wise 

and consider themselves to be clever. 

²²How horrible it will be for those 

who are heroes at drinking wine, 

who are champions at mixing drinks, 

²³who declare the guilty innocent for a bribe, 

who take away the rights of righteous people. 

The Lord Will Use Another Nation to Punish His People

²⁴As flames burn up straw 

and dry grass shrivels in flames, 

so their roots will rot, 

and their blossoms will blow away like dust. 

They have rejected the teachings of the Lord of Armies 

and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. 

²⁵That’s why the anger of the Lord burns hot against his people, 

and he is ready to use his power to strike them down. 

The hills tremble, 

and dead bodies lie like garbage in the streets. 

Even after all this, his anger has not disappeared, 

and he is still ready to use his power. 

²⁶The Lord raises up a flag for the nations far away. 

With a whistle he signals those at the ends of the earth. 

Look, they are coming very quickly! 

²⁷None of them grow tired or stumble. 

None of them slumber or sleep. 

The belts on their waists aren’t loose 

or their sandal straps broken. 

²⁸Their arrows are sharpened; all their bows are ready to shoot. 

Their horses’ hoofs are as hard as flint. 

Their chariot wheels are as quick as the wind. 

²⁹They roar like a lioness. 

They growl like a young lion. 

They growl as they snatch their prey 

and carry it off to where no one can rescue it. 

³⁰On that day they will roar over their prey 

as the sea roars. 

If they look at the land, 

they will see only darkness and distress. 

Even the light will be darkened by thick clouds.