¹Let me now sing to my lover

The song of my loved one about his vineyard.

My lover had a vineyard

On a fertile hilltop.

²And he dug it and cleared it of stones,

And he planted it with a choice vine,

And he built a tower in the middle of it,

And he also hewed out a wine vat in it.

And he expected it to produce good grapes,

But it produced blighted ones.

³So now, O inhabitant of Jerusalem,

And men of Judah,

Please judge between me and my vineyard.

⁴What more was there to do to my vineyard

That I didn't do in it?

How is it that I expected it to produce good grapes,

But it produced blighted ones?

⁵So now let me make known to you what I am about to do to my vineyard.

I will remove its hedge,

And it will be consigned to burning;

And I will tear down its wall,

And it will become a place trodden down.

⁶And I will make it a desolate place,

Where it is not pruned or hoed,

And the briar and thorn will come up.

And I will command the rainclouds

Not to precipitate rain on it.

⁷For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts

Is the house of Israel,

And the men of Judah

Are his delightful plantation.

And he expected justice

But what came was bloodshed;

And righteousness,

But what came was crying out.

⁸Woe to those who join house to house,

And who adjoin field to field,

Until there is no room,

And you are housed on your own,

In the middle of the land.

⁹In my ear, the Lord of hosts said,

“Many houses will certainly become a desolation

– Large ones and good ones –

For want of an occupant.

¹⁰For ten times what a yoke of oxen plough in a day in a vineyard

Will yield one bath,

And seed for a homer

Will yield one ephah.”

¹¹Woe to those who get up early in the morning

And go looking for strong drink;

They stay up until late in the night,

While wine inflames them.

¹²And there will be at their banquets

The harp and the lute,

The drum and the pipe, and wine,

But they do not have respect for the Lord's deeds,

And they do not regard the work of his hands,

¹³Which is why my people have gone into captivity,

For want of knowledge.

And what was its glory

Is now hungry men,

And what was its populousness

Is now thirsty dryness.

¹⁴That is why the grave has opened itself wide

And distended its mouth without limit,

And their glory and their many people, and their bustling,

And he who is joyful

Will descend into it.

¹⁵A man is made low,

And a person is humbled,

And the eyes of the arrogant will be brought down,

¹⁶But the Lord of hosts is exalted by justice,

And holy God is sanctified by righteousness.

¹⁷And lambs will feed according to what pasture they have,

And foreigners will eat from the desolate places of the well-fed.

¹⁸Woe to those who pull iniquity along

With cords of vanity,

And sinfulness,

As if with a cart-rope,

¹⁹Who say, “Let his work come quickly,

Let it hasten so we can see it,

And let the counsel of the holy one of Israel draw near and arrive

So we can acknowledge it.”

²⁰Woe to those who call bad good,

And good bad,

Substituting darkness for light,

And light for darkness,

Substituting bitter for sweet,

And sweet for bitter.

²¹Woe to the wise in their own eyes,

And the intelligent in their own opinion.

²²Woe to the champions in drinking liquor,

And the masters in mixing strong drink,

²³And those who justify the wicked for a bribe,

But as for the justice of the righteous,

They deny him it.

²⁴That is why as a tongue of fire consumes the stubble,

And the hay collapses before the flame.

Their root will be rotten,

And their blossoms will appear like dust,

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

And they have despised the words of the holy one of Israel.

²⁵This is why the Lord's anger is kindled against his people,

And why he stretched out his hand against them and struck them,

And the mountains stood in awe,

And their corpses were like the filth in the middle of the open places.

Yet for all this,

His anger is not receding,

And his hand is still stretched out.

²⁶And he will raise a banner to the Gentiles from afar off,

And he will whistle for them from the end of the earth,

And behold, they will come

With haste and speed.

²⁷There is no-one weary, and no-one stumbles among them;

They do not slumber and do not sleep,

And the girdle around their waist does not come loose,

And the fastening of their shoes does not come undone.

²⁸And their arrows are sharp,

And all their bows are drawn,

And the hoofs of their horses are considered as flint,

And their chariot wheels are like a hurricane.

²⁹They have a roar like a lion,

And they roar like lion cubs,

And they growl and seize prey,

And they make off with it,

And there is no-one to rescue it.

³⁰But he will roar at them on that day,

Like the roaring of the sea.

And if one looks at the earth,

There will be darkness and distress,

And the light will be made dark

By its overclouding.