Isaiah 5:8–30

⁸How terrible it will be for you who add more houses to your houses

and more fields to your fields

until there is no room left for other people.

Then you are left alone in the land.

⁹The Lord All-Powerful said this to me:

“The fine houses will be destroyed;

the large and beautiful houses will be left empty.

¹⁰At that time a ten-acre vineyard will make only six gallons of wine,

and ten bushels of seed will grow only half a bushel of grain.”

¹¹How terrible it will be for people who rise early in the morning

to look for strong drink,

who stay awake late at night,

becoming drunk with wine.

¹²At their parties they have lyres, harps,

tambourines, flutes, and wine.

They don’t see what the Lord has done

or notice the work of his hands.

¹³So my people will be captured and taken away,

because they don’t really know me.

All the great people will die of hunger,

and the common people will die of thirst.

¹⁴So the place of the dead wants more and more people,

and it opens wide its mouth.

Jerusalem’s important people and common people will go down into it,

with their happy and noisy ones.

¹⁵So the common people and the great people will be brought down;

those who are proud will be humbled.

¹⁶The Lord All-Powerful will receive glory by judging fairly;

the holy God will show himself holy by doing what is right.

¹⁷Then the sheep will go anywhere they want,

and lambs will feed on the land that rich people once owned.

¹⁸How terrible it will be for those people!

They pull their guilt and sins behind them

as people pull wagons with ropes.

¹⁹They say, “Let God hurry;

let him do his work soon

so we may see it.

Let the plan of the Holy One of Israel happen soon

so that we will know what it is.”

²⁰How terrible it will be for people who call good things bad

and bad things good,

who think darkness is light

and light is darkness,

who think sour is sweet

and sweet is sour.

²¹How terrible it will be for people who think they are wise

and believe they are clever.

²²How terrible it will be for people who are famous for drinking wine

and are champions at mixing drinks.

²³They take money to set the guilty free

and don’t allow good people to be judged fairly.

²⁴They will be destroyed

just as fire burns straw or dry grass.

They will be destroyed

like a plant whose roots rot

and whose flower dies and blows away like dust.

They have refused to obey the teachings of the Lord All-Powerful

and have hated the message from the Holy God of Israel.

²⁵So the Lord has become very angry with his people,

and he has raised his hand to punish them.

Even the mountains are frightened.

Dead bodies lie in the streets like garbage.

But the Lord is still angry;

his hand is still raised to strike down the people.

²⁶He raises a banner for the nations far away.

He whistles to call those people from the ends of the earth.

Look! The enemy comes quickly!

²⁷Not one of them becomes tired or falls down.

Not one of them gets sleepy and falls asleep.

Their weapons are close at hand,

and their sandal straps are not broken.

²⁸Their arrows are sharp,

and all of their bows are ready to shoot.

The horses’ hoofs are hard as rocks,

and their chariot wheels move like a whirlwind.

²⁹Their shout is like the roar of a lion;

it is loud like a young lion.

They growl as they grab their captives.

There is no one to stop them from taking their captives away.

³⁰On that day they will roar

like the waves of the sea.

And when people look at the land,

they will see only darkness and pain;

all light will become dark in this thick cloud.