Isaiah 5:8–17

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.