Isaiah 3–5

Chapter 3

¹For, behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts,

is taking away from Jerusalem and from Judah

stay and staff,

the whole stay of bread,

and the whole stay of water;

²the mighty man and the soldier,

the judge and the prophet,

the diviner and the elder,

³the captain of fifty

and the man of rank,

the counselor and the skilful magician

and the expert in charms.

⁴And I will make boys their princes,

and babes shall rule over them.

⁵And the people will oppress one another,

every man his fellow and

every man his neighbor;

the youth will be insolent to the elder,

and the base fellow to the honorable.

⁶When a man takes hold of his brother

in the house of his father, saying:

“You have a mantle;

you shall be our leader,

and this heap of ruins

shall be under your rule”;

⁷in that day he will speak out, saying:

“I will not be a healer;

in my house there is neither bread nor mantle;

you shall not make me

leader of the people.”

⁸For Jerusalem has stumbled,

and Judah has fallen;

because their speech and their deeds are against the Lord,

defying his glorious presence.

⁹Their partiality witnesses against them;

they proclaim their sin like Sodom,

they do not hide it.

Woe to them!

For they have brought evil upon themselves.

¹⁰Tell the righteous that it shall be well with them,

for they shall eat the fruit of their deeds.

¹¹Woe to the wicked! It shall be ill with him,

for what his hands have done shall be done to him.

¹²My people—children are their oppressors,

and women rule over them.

O my people, your leaders mislead you,

and confuse the course of your paths.

¹³The Lord has taken his place to contend,

he stands to judge his people.^d

¹⁴The Lord enters into judgment

with the elders and princes of his people:

“It is you who have devoured the vineyard,

the spoil of the poor is in your houses.

¹⁵What do you mean by crushing my people,

by grinding the face of the poor?”

says the Lord GOD of hosts.

¹⁶The Lord said:

Because the daughters of Zion are haughty

and walk with outstretched necks,

glancing wantonly with their eyes,

mincing along as they go,

tinkling with their feet;

¹⁷the Lord will smite with a scab

the heads of the daughters of Zion,

and the Lord will lay bare their secret parts.

¹⁸In that day the Lord will take away the finery of the anklets, the headbands, and the crescents; ¹⁹the pendants, the bracelets, and the scarfs; ²⁰the headdresses, the armlets, the sashes, the perfume boxes, and the amulets; ²¹the signet rings and nose rings; ²²the festal robes, the mantles, the cloaks, and the handbags; ²³the garments of gauze, the linen garments, the turbans, and the veils.

²⁴Instead of perfume there will be rottenness;

and instead of a girdle, a rope;

and instead of well-set hair, baldness;

and instead of a rich robe, a girding of sackcloth;

instead of beauty, shame.

²⁵Your men shall fall by the sword

and your mighty men in battle.

²⁶And her gates shall lament and mourn;

ravaged, she shall sit upon the ground.

Chapter 4

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

²In that day the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall be the pride and glory of the survivors of Israel. ³And he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, every one who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem, ⁴when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgment and by a spirit of burning. ⁵Then the Lord will create over the whole site of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, and smoke and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory there will be a canopy and a pavilion. ⁶It will be for a shade by day from the heat, and for a refuge and a shelter from the storm and rain.

Chapter 5

¹Let me sing for my beloved

a love song concerning his vineyard:

My beloved had a vineyard

on a very fertile hill.

²He digged it and cleared it of stones,

and planted it with choice vines;

he built a watchtower in the midst of it,

and hewed out a wine vat in it;

and he looked for it to yield grapes,

but it yielded wild grapes.

³And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem

and men of Judah,

judge, I pray you, between me

and my vineyard.

⁴What more was there to do for my vineyard,

that I have not done in it?

When I looked for it to yield grapes,

why did it yield wild grapes?

⁵And now I will tell you

what I will do to my vineyard.

I will remove its hedge,

and it shall be devoured;

I will break down its wall,

and it shall be trampled down.

⁶I will make it a waste;

it shall not be pruned or hoed,

and briers and thorns shall grow up;

I will also command the clouds

that they rain no rain upon it.

⁷For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts

is the house of Israel,

and the men of Judah

are his pleasant planting;

and he looked for justice,

but behold, bloodshed;

for righteousness,

but behold, a cry!

⁸Woe to those who join house to house,

who add field to field,

until there is no more room,

and you are made to dwell alone

in the midst of the land.

⁹The Lord of hosts has sworn in my hearing:

“Surely many houses shall be desolate,

large and beautiful houses, without inhabitant.

¹⁰For ten acres of vineyard shall yield but one bath,

and a homer of seed shall yield but an ephah.”

¹¹Woe to those who rise early in the morning,

that they may run after strong drink,

who tarry late into the evening

till wine inflames them!

¹²They have lyre and harp,

timbrel and flute and wine at their feasts;

but they do not regard the deeds of the Lord,

or see the work of his hands.

¹³Therefore my people go into exile for want of knowledge;

their honored men are dying of hunger,

and their multitude is parched with thirst.

¹⁴Therefore Sheol has enlarged its appetite

and opened its mouth beyond measure,

and the nobility of Jerusalem^f and her multitude go down,

her throng and he who exults in her.

¹⁵Man is bowed down, and men are brought low,

and the eyes of the haughty are humbled.

¹⁶But the Lord of hosts is exalted in justice,

and the Holy God shows himself holy in righteousness.

¹⁷Then shall the lambs graze as in their pasture,

fatlings and kids^g shall feed among the ruins.

¹⁸Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood,

who draw sin as with cart ropes,

¹⁹who say: “Let him make haste,

let him speed his work

that we may see it;

let the purpose of the Holy One of Israel draw near,

and let it come, that we may know it!”

²⁰Woe 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!

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

and shrewd in their own sight!

²²Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine,

and valiant men in mixing strong drink,

²³who acquit the guilty for a bribe,

and deprive the innocent of his right!

²⁴Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble,

and as dry grass sinks down in the flame,

so their root will be as rottenness,

and their blossom go up like dust;

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

and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

²⁵Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against his people,

and he stretched out his hand against them and smote them,

and the mountains quaked;

and their corpses were as refuse

in the midst of the streets.

For all this his anger is not turned away

and his hand is stretched out still.

²⁶He will raise a signal for a nation afar off,

and whistle for it from the ends of the earth;

and lo, swiftly, speedily it comes!

²⁷None is weary, none stumbles,

none slumbers or sleeps,

not a waistcloth is loose,

not a sandal-thong broken;

²⁸their arrows are sharp,

all their bows bent,

their horses’ hoofs seem like flint,

and their wheels like the whirlwind.

²⁹Their roaring is like a lion,

like young lions they roar;

they growl and seize their prey,

they carry it off, and none can rescue.

³⁰They will growl over it on that day,

like the roaring of the sea.

And if one look to the land,

behold, darkness and distress;

and the light is darkened by its clouds.