Isaiah 5:8–17

You Who Call Evil Good and Good Evil

^8–10Doom to you who buy up all the houses

and grab all the land for yourselves—

Evicting the old owners,

posting no trespassing signs,

Taking over the country,

leaving everyone homeless and landless.

I overheard God-of-the-Angel-Armies say:

“Those mighty houses will end up empty.

Those extravagant estates will be deserted.

A ten-acre vineyard will produce a pint of wine,

a fifty-pound sack of seed, a quart of grain.”

^11–17Doom to those who get up early

and start drinking booze before breakfast,

Who stay up all hours of the night

drinking themselves into a stupor.

They make sure their banquets are well-furnished

with harps and flutes and plenty of wine,

But they’ll have nothing to do with the work of God,

pay no mind to what he is doing.

Therefore my people will end up in exile

because they don’t know the score.

Their “big men” will starve to death

and the common people die of thirst.

Sheol developed a huge appetite,

swallowing people nonstop!

Big people and little people alike

down that gullet, to say nothing of all the drunks.

The down-and-out on a par

with the high-and-mighty,

Windbag boasters crumpled,

flaccid as a punctured bladder.

But by working justice,

God-of-the-Angel-Armies will be a mountain.

By working righteousness,

Holy God will show what “holy” is.

And lambs will graze

as if they owned the place,

Kids and calves

right at home in the ruins.