1 Let me sing now for my beloved one, a song of my beloved about his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.
2 He dug it over, cleared away its stones and planted it with choice vines. He built a tower in the middle of it and cut out a wine vat there too. He looked for it to yield grapes, but what it yielded was wild grapes.
3 So now, you who live in Jerusalem and you people of Judah, judge, I ask you, between me and my vineyard.
4 What else could be done for my vineyard that I have not done for it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?
5 Now then, let me tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be grazed; I will tear down its wall, and it will be trampled.
6 I will make it a wasteland, unpruned and unhoed, overgrown with thorns and briers, and I will order the clouds not to let rain fall on it.
7 The vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are the garden he delighted in. He looked for justice, and there was bloodshed; for righteousness, and there was an outcry.
8 Woe to you who join house onto house and bring field next to field, until no room is left and you are settled alone in the middle of the land!
9 The LORD of hosts has said in my hearing: Surely many houses will become a ruin, large and lovely houses with no one living in them.
10 Ten acres of vineyard will produce a single bath, and a homer of seed will bring in only an ephah.
11 Woe to those who get up early in the morning to run after strong drink, who linger into the evening twilight while wine sets them aflame!
12 Harp and lyre, tambourine and flute, and wine make up their banquets, but they pay no attention to the deeds of the LORD and do not look at the work of his hands.
13 That is why my people are going into exile without knowing it; their honored men are dying of hunger, and their crowds are dried up with thirst.
14 That is why Sheol has stretched its throat wide and opened its mouth without limit, and down into it go her nobility and her masses, her noise and all who revel in her.
15 Mankind is bowed down and every man is humbled, and the eyes of the proud are lowered.
16 Yet the LORD of hosts is lifted high through justice, and the holy God proves himself holy through righteousness.
17 Then lambs will feed there as in their own pasture, and strangers will eat among the ruins left by the fat ones.
18 Woe to those who haul iniquity along with ropes of emptiness and sin as with the harness of a cart,
19 who say, "Let him be quick! Let him speed up his work so that we can see it. Let the purpose of the Holy One of Israel come close and arrive, so that we can know it!"
20 Woe to those who say that evil is good and good is 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 wise in their own eyes and shrewd in their own estimation!
22 Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing strong drink,
23 who declare the guilty innocent in return for a bribe and strip the innocent of their right!
24 So, just as a tongue of fire eats up stubble and dry grass shrivels in the flame, their root will rot and their blossom will blow away like dust, because they have thrown off the law of the LORD of hosts and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
25 That is why the anger of the LORD has blazed against his people. He has stretched out his hand against them and struck them down; the mountains shook, and their dead bodies lay like garbage in the streets. Even so his anger has not turned back; his hand is still stretched out.
26 He will lift up a banner for nations far off and whistle for them from the ends of the earth, and look, they come, fast and swift!
27 None of them grows tired or stumbles, none dozes or sleeps; no belt is loose at their waist, no sandal strap snapped.
28 Their arrows are sharp, all their bows strung; their horses' hooves seem like flint, their wheels like a whirlwind.
29 They roar like a lion, like young lions they roar; they growl and seize their prey, carry it away, and no one can rescue it.
30 On that day they will growl over it like the roaring of the sea. If anyone looks over the land, there is darkness and distress; even the light is darkened by its clouds.