God’s Disappointing Vineyard

5 Now let me sing to my Well-beloved A song of my Beloved aregarding His vineyard:

My Well-beloved has a vineyard

1On a very fruitful hill.

2 He dug it up and cleared out its stones,

And planted it with the choicest vine.

He built a tower in its midst,

And also 2made a winepress in it;

bSo He expected it to bring forth good grapes,

But it brought forth wild grapes.

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

cJudge, please, between Me and My vineyard.

4 What more could have been done to My vineyard

That I have not done in dit?

Why then, when I expected it to bring forth good grapes,

Did it bring forth wild grapes?

5 And now, please let Me tell you what I will do to My vineyard:

eI will take away its hedge, and it shall be burned;

And break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down.

6 I will lay it fwaste;

It shall not be pruned or 3dug,

But there shall come up briers and gthorns.

I will also command the clouds

That they rain no rain on it.”

7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel,

And the men of Judah are His pleasant plant.

He looked for justice, but behold, oppression;

For righteousness, but behold, 4a cry for help.

Impending Judgment on Excesses

8 Woe to those who 5join hhouse to house;

They add field to field,

Till there is no place

Where they may dwell alone in the midst of the land!

9 iIn my hearing the Lord of hosts said,

“Truly, many houses shall be desolate,

Great and beautiful ones, without inhabitant.

10 For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one jbath, 6

And a 7homer of seed shall yield one ephah.”

11 kWoe to those who rise early in the morning,

That they may 8follow intoxicating drink;

Who continue until night, till wine inflames them!

12 lThe harp and the strings,

The tambourine and flute,

And wine are in their feasts;

But mthey do not regard the work of the Lord,

Nor consider the operation of His hands.

13 nTherefore my people have gone into captivity,

Because they have no oknowledge;

Their honorable men are famished,

And their multitude dried up with thirst.

14 Therefore Sheol has enlarged itself

And opened its mouth beyond measure;

Their glory and their multitude and their pomp,

And he who is jubilant, shall descend into it.

15 People shall be brought down,

pEach man shall be humbled,

And the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled.

16 But the Lord of hosts shall be qexalted in judgment,

And God who is holy shall be hallowed in righteousness.

17 Then the lambs shall feed in their pasture,

And in the waste places of rthe 9fat ones strangers shall eat.

18 Woe to those who 1draw iniquity with cords of 2vanity,

And sin as if with a cart rope;

19 sThat say, “Let Him make speed and hasten His work,

That we may see it;

And let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come,

That we may know it.”

20 Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;

Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness;

Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

21 Woe to those who are twise in their own eyes,

And prudent in their own sight!

22 Woe to men mighty at drinking wine,

Woe to men valiant for mixing intoxicating drink,

23 Who ujustify the wicked for a bribe,

And take away justice from the righteous man!

24 Therefore, vas the 3fire devours the stubble,

And the flame consumes the chaff,

So wtheir root will be as rottenness,

And their blossom will ascend like dust;

Because they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts,

And despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

25 xTherefore the anger of the Lord is aroused against His people;

He has stretched out His hand against them

And stricken them,

And ythe hills trembled.

Their carcasses were as refuse in the midst of the streets.

zFor all this His anger is not turned away,

But His hand is stretched out still.

26 aHe will lift up a banner to the nations from afar,

And will bwhistle to them from cthe end of the earth;

Surely dthey shall come with speed, swiftly.

27 No one will be weary or stumble among them,

No one will slumber or sleep;

Nor ewill the belt on their loins be loosed,

Nor the strap of their sandals be broken;

28 fWhose arrows are sharp,

And all their bows bent;

Their horses’ hooves will 4seem like flint,

And their wheels like a whirlwind.

29 Their roaring will be like a lion,

They will roar like young lions;

Yes, they will roar

And lay hold of the prey;

They will carry it away safely,

And no one will deliver.

30 In that day they will roar against them

Like the roaring of the sea.

And if one glooks to the land,

Behold, darkness and 5sorrow;

And the light is darkened by the clouds.

Isaiah Called to Be a Prophet

6 In the year that aKing Uzziah died, I bsaw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. 2 Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, cwith two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one cried to another and said:

d“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;

eThe whole earth is full of His glory!”

4 And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke.

5 So I said:

“Woe is me, for I am 1undone!

Because I am a man of funclean lips,

And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips;

For my eyes have seen the King,

The Lord of hosts.”

6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from gthe altar. 7 And he htouched my mouth with it, and said:

“Behold, this has touched your lips;

Your iniquity is taken away,

And your sin 2purged.”

8 Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying:

“Whom shall I send,

And who will go for iUs?”

Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”

9 And He said, “Go, and jtell this people:

‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand;

Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’

10 “Make kthe heart of this people dull,

And their ears heavy,

And shut their eyes;

lLest they see with their eyes,

And hear with their ears,

And understand with their heart,

And return and be healed.”

11 Then I said, “Lord, how long?”

And He answered:

m“Until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant,

The houses are without a man,

The land is utterly desolate,

12 nThe Lord has removed men far away,

And the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.

13 But yet a tenth will be in it,

And will return and be for consuming,

As a terebinth tree or as an oak,

Whose stump remains when it is cut down.

So othe holy seed shall be its stump.”

Isaiah Sent to King Ahaz

7 Now it came to pass in the days of aAhaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to make war against bit, but could not 1prevail against it. 2 And it was told to the house of David, saying, “Syria’s forces are 2deployed in Ephraim.” So his heart and the heart of his people were moved as the trees of the woods are moved with the wind.

3 Then the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and 3Shear-Jashub your son, at the end of the aqueduct from the upper pool, on the highway to the Fuller’s Field, 4 and say to him: 4‘Take heed, and 5be cquiet; do not fear or be fainthearted for these two stubs of smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria, and the son of Remaliah. 5 Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah have plotted evil against you, saying, 6 “Let us go up against Judah and 6trouble it, and let us make a gap in its wall for ourselves, and set a king over them, the son of Tabel”—7 thus says the Lord God:

d“It shall not stand,

Nor shall it come to pass.

8 eFor the head of Syria is Damascus,

And the head of Damascus is Rezin.

Within sixty-five years Ephraim will be 7broken,

So that it will not be a people.

9 The head of Ephraim is Samaria,

And the head of Samaria is Remaliah’s son.

fIf you will not believe,

Surely you shall not be established.” ’ ”

The Immanuel Prophecy

10 Moreover the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying, 11 g“Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God; 8ask it either in the depth or in the height above.”

12 But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord!”

13 Then he said, “Hear now, O house of David! Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: hBehold, the virgin shall conceive and bear ia Son, and shall call His name jImmanuel. 915 Curds and honey He shall eat, that He may know to refuse the evil and choose the good. 16 kFor before the Child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that you dread will be forsaken by lboth her kings. 17 mThe Lord will bring the king of Assyria upon you and your people and your father’s house—days that have not come since the day that nEphraim departed from Judah.”

18 And it shall come to pass in that day

That the Lord owill whistle for the fly

That is in the farthest part of the rivers of Egypt,

And for the bee that is in the land of Assyria.

19 They will come, and all of them will rest

In the desolate valleys and in pthe clefts of the rocks,

And on all thorns and in all pastures.

20 In the same day the Lord will shave with a qhired rrazor,

With those from beyond 1the River, with the king of Assyria,

The head and the hair of the legs,

And will also remove the beard.

21 It shall be in that day

That a man will keep alive a young cow and two sheep;

22 So it shall be, from the abundance of milk they give,

That he will eat curds;

For curds and honey everyone will eat who is left in the land.

23 It shall happen in that day,

That wherever there could be a thousand vines

Worth a thousand shekels of silver,

sIt will be for briers and thorns.

24 With arrows and bows men will come there,

Because all the land will become briers and thorns.

25 And to any hill which could be dug with the hoe,

You will not go there for fear of briers and thorns;

But it will become a range for oxen

And a place for sheep to roam.