Isaiah 3–5

CHAPTER 3

Yahweh Will Judge Judah’s Leaders

¹For behold, the Lord, Yahweh of hosts, ^ais going to remove from Jerusalem and Judah

Both ¹supply and support, the whole ²supply of bread

And the whole ³supply of water,

^2aThe mighty man and the man of war,

The judge and the prophet,

The diviner and the elder,

³The commander of fifty and the ¹highly respected man,

The counselor and the wise craftsman,

And the experienced enchanter.

⁴And I will make ^ayoung men their princes,

And ¹capricious children will rule over them,

⁵And the people will be ^aoppressed,

Each one by another, and each one by his ^bneighbor;

The youth will overwhelm the elder

And the dishonorable, the honorable.

⁶When a man ^agrasps his brother in his father’s house, saying,

“You have a cloak, you shall be our ruler,

And these ruins will be under your hand,”

⁷He will ¹protest on that day, saying,

“I will not be your ^2ahealer,

For in my house there is neither bread nor cloak;

You should not appoint me ruler of the people.”

⁸For ^aJerusalem has stumbled and Judah has fallen,

Because their ^btongue and their deeds are against Yahweh,

To ^crebel against ¹His glorious presence.

⁹¹The expression of their faces answers against them,

And they declare their sin like ^aSodom;

They do not even conceal it.

Woe to their soul!

For they have ^bdealt out evil on themselves.

¹⁰Say to the ^arighteous that it will go well with them,

For they will eat the fruit of their deeds.

¹¹Woe to the wicked! It will go badly with him,

For ^1awhat he has dealt out will be done to him.

¹²O My people! Their taskmasters ¹are ^ainfants,

And women rule over them.

O My people! ^bThose who guide you lead you astray

And swallow up the way of your paths.

^13aYahweh takes His stand to contend,

And stands to judge the peoples.

¹⁴Yahweh ^aenters into judgment with the elders of His people and His princes,

“It is you who have ^bconsumed the vineyard;

The ^cplunder robbed of the afflicted is in your houses.

¹⁵“What do you mean by ^acrushing My people

And grinding the face of the afflicted?”

Declares Lord Yahweh of hosts.

Yahweh Will Judge Zion’s Daughters

¹⁶Moreover, Yahweh said, “Because the ^adaughters of Zion are haughty

And walk with outstretched necks and seductive eyes,

And go along with mincing steps

And tinkle the bangles on their feet,

¹⁷Therefore the Lord will smite the skull of the daughters of Zion with scabs,

And Yahweh will make their foreheads bare.”

¹⁸In that day the Lord will remove the beauty of their anklets, headbands, ^acrescent ornaments,

¹⁹dangling earrings, bracelets, veils,

^20aheaddresses, ankle chains, sashes, perfume boxes, enchanted charms,

²¹¹finger rings, ^anose rings,

²²festal robes, outer tunics, cloaks, money purses,

²³hand mirrors, undergarments, turbans, and shawls.

²⁴Now it will be that instead of ¹sweet ^aperfume there will be the smell of rot;

Instead of a belt, a rope;

Instead of ^bwell-set hair, a ^cplucked-out scalp;

Instead of fine clothes, a ^ddonning of sackcloth;

And branding instead of beauty.

²⁵Your men will ^afall by the sword

And your ¹mighty ones in battle.

²⁶And her ^1agates will lament and mourn,

And deserted she will ^bsit on the ground.

CHAPTER 4

¹And seven women will take hold of ^aone man in that day, saying, “We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes, only let us be called by your name; ^btake away our reproach!”

The Branch of Yahweh Glorified

²In that day the ^aBranch of Yahweh will be beautiful and glorious, and the ^bfruit of the earth will be the pride and the ¹honor of ^cthose of Israel who escape.

³It will be that he who ^aremains in Zion and is left in Jerusalem will be called ^bholy—everyone who is ^cwritten down for life in Jerusalem.

⁴When the Lord has washed away the filth of the ^adaughters of Zion and rinsed away the ^bbloodshed of Jerusalem from her midst, by the ^cspirit of judgment and the ^dspirit of burning,

⁵then Yahweh will create over the whole area of Mount Zion and over her convocation ^aa cloud by day, even smoke, and the brightness of a flaming fire by night; for over all the ^bglory will be a canopy.

⁶And there will be a ^abooth to give shade from the heat by day, and refuge and a hiding place from the storm and the rain.

CHAPTER 5

The Song of the Vineyard

¹Let me sing now for my well-beloved

A song of my beloved concerning His vineyard.

My well-beloved had a ^avineyard on ¹a fertile hill.

²He dug it all around, removed its stones,

And planted it with ¹the ^achoicest vine.

And He built a tower in the middle of it

And also hewed out a ²wine vat in it;

Then He ^bhoped for it to produce good grapes,

But it produced only ³worthless ones.

³“So now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah,

^aPlease judge between Me and My vineyard.

⁴“^aWhat more was there to do for My vineyard ¹that I have not done in it?

Why, when I hoped for it to produce good grapes did it produce ²worthless ones?

⁵“So now let Me tell you what I am going to do to My vineyard:

I will ^aremove its hedge, and it will be consumed;

I will ^bbreak down its wall, and it will become ^ctrampled ground.

⁶“I will ^alay it waste;

It will not be pruned or hoed,

But briars and thorns will come up.

I will also command the clouds to ^brain no rain on it.”

⁷For the ^avineyard of Yahweh of hosts is the house of Israel

And the men of Judah His delightful plant.

Thus He hoped for justice, but behold, ^bbloodshed;

For righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress.

Woes to Those Who Call Evil Good

⁸Woe to those who ^aadd house to house and join field to field,

Until there is no more room,

So that you have to live alone in the midst of the land!

⁹In my ears Yahweh of hosts has sworn, “Surely, ^amany houses shall become ^bdesolate,

Even great and good ones, without inhabitants.

¹⁰“For ^aten ¹acres of vineyard will yield only one ²bath of wine,

And a ^3bhomer of seed will yield but an ⁴ephah of grain.”

¹¹Woe to those who rise early in the morning that they may pursue ^astrong drink,

Who stay up late in the evening that wine may inflame them!

¹²And their banquets are accompanied by lyre and ^aharp, by tambourine and flute, and by wine;

But they ^bdo not look upon the deeds of Yahweh,

Nor do they see the work of His hands.

¹³Therefore My people go into exile for their ^alack of knowledge;

And ¹their ^bhonorable men are famished,

And their multitude is parched with thirst.

¹⁴Therefore ^aSheol has enlarged its ¹throat and opened its mouth without limit;

And ²Jerusalem’s majesty, her multitude, her rumbling, and the exultant within her, descend into it.

¹⁵So the common man will be bowed down and the man of importance will be made low,

^aThe eyes of the lofty also will be made low.

¹⁶But ^aYahweh of hosts will be ^blofty in judgment,

And the holy God will show Himself ^choly in righteousness.

^17aThen the lambs will graze as in their pasture,

And sojourners will eat in the waste places of the ¹wealthy.

¹⁸Woe to those who drag ^ainiquity with the cords of worthlessness,

And sin as if with cart ropes,

^19aWho say, “Let Him hurry, let Him hasten His work, that we may see it;

And let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near

And come to pass, that we may know it!”

²⁰Woe to those who ^acall evil good and good evil,

Who ^1bsubstitute darkness for light and light for darkness,

Who ²substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!

²¹Woe to those who are ^awise in their own eyes

And understanding in their own ¹sight!

^22aWoe to those who are mighty men in drinking wine

And valiant men in mixing strong drink,

^23aWho ¹declare the wicked righteous for a bribe,

And ^bremove the ²righteous standing of the ones who are ³righteous!

²⁴Therefore, ^aas a tongue of fire consumes stubble

And dry grass collapses into the flame,

So their ^broot will become ^clike rot and their blossom ¹blow away as dust;

For they have ^drejected the law of Yahweh of hosts

And the word of the Holy One of Israel they have spurned.

²⁵On this account, the ^aanger of Yahweh has burned against His people,

And He has stretched out His hand against them and struck them down.

And the ^bmountains trembled, and their ^ccorpses ¹lay like refuse in the middle of the streets.

^dFor all this His anger is not turned back,

But His ^ehand is still stretched out.

²⁶He will also lift up a ^astandard to the ¹distant nations,

And will ^bwhistle for it ^cfrom the ends of the earth;

And behold, it will ^dcome with speed swiftly.

^27aNo one in it is weary or stumbles,

None slumbers or sleeps;

Nor is the ^bbelt at its waist undone,

Nor its sandal strap broken.

^281aIts arrows are sharp and all its bows are bent;

The hoofs of its horses ²seem like flint and its chariot ^bwheels like a whirlwind.

²⁹Its ^aroaring is like a lioness, and it roars like young lions;

It growls and ^bseizes the prey

And carries it off with ^cno one to deliver it.

³⁰And it will ^agrowl over it in that day like the roaring of the sea.

If one ^blooks to the land, behold, there is darkness and distress;

Even the light is darkened by its clouds.