Isaiah 5:8–17

Judah’s Guilt and Judgment

⁸What sorrow for you who buy up house after house and field after field,

until everyone is evicted and you live alone in the land.

⁹But I have heard the Lord of Heaven’s Armies

swear a solemn oath:

“Many houses will stand deserted;

even beautiful mansions will be empty.

¹⁰Ten acres of vineyard will not produce even six gallons of wine.

Ten baskets of seed will yield only one basket of grain.”

¹¹What sorrow for those who get up early in the morning

looking for a drink of alcohol

and spend long evenings drinking wine

to make themselves flaming drunk.

¹²They furnish wine and lovely music at their grand parties—

lyre and harp, tambourine and flute—

but they never think about the Lord

or notice what he is doing.

¹³So my people will go into exile far away

because they do not know me.

Those who are great and honored will starve,

and the common people will die of thirst.

¹⁴The grave is licking its lips in anticipation,

opening its mouth wide.

The great and the lowly

and all the drunken mob will be swallowed up.

¹⁵Humanity will be destroyed, and people brought down;

even the arrogant will lower their eyes in humiliation.

¹⁶But the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will be exalted by his justice.

The holiness of God will be displayed by his righteousness.

¹⁷In that day lambs will find good pastures,

and fattened sheep and young goats will feed among the ruins.