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¹ Let me sing for my well beloved a song of my beloved about his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. ² He dug it up, Gathered out its stones, Planted it with the choicest vine, Built a tower in its midst, And also cut out a winepress therein. He looked for it to yield grapes, But it yielded wild grapes. ³ Now, inhabitants of Yerushalayim and men of Yehudah, Please judge between me and my vineyard. ⁴ What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Why, when I looked for it to yield grapes, did it yield wild grapes? ⁵ Now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away its hedge, and it will be eaten up. I will break down its wall of it, and it will be trampled down. ⁶ I will lay it a wasteland. It won't be pruned nor hoed, But it will grow briers and thorns. 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 Yisra'el, And the men of Yehudah his pleasant plant: And he looked for justice, but, behold, oppression; For righteousness, but, behold, a cry of distress.

⁸ Woe to those who join house to house, Who lay field to field, until there is no room, And you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land! ⁹ In my ears, the LORD of Hosts says: "Surely many houses will be desolate, Even great and beautiful, unoccupied. ¹⁰ For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, And a homer of seed shall yield an efah. ¹¹ Woe to those who rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; who stay late into the night, until wine inflames them! ¹² The harp and the lute, the tambourine and the pipe, and wine, are [in] their feasts; but they don't regard the work of the LORD, neither have they considered the operation of his hands. ¹³ Therefore my people are gone into captivity for lack of knowledge; and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude are parched with thirst. ¹⁴ Therefore She'ol has enlarged its desire, and opened its mouth without measure; and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he who rejoices among them, descend [into it]. ¹⁵ The mean man is bowed down, and the great man is humbled, and the eyes of the lofty are humbled: ¹⁶ but the LORD of Hosts is exalted in justice, and God the Holy One is sanctified in righteousness. ¹⁷ Then shall the lambs feed as in their pasture, and the waste places of the fat ones shall wanderers eat.

¹⁸ Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, and sin as it were with a cart rope; ¹⁹ who say, Let him make speed, let him hasten his work, that we may see it; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Yisra'el 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 wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! ²² Woe to those who are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink; ²³ who justify the wicked for a bribe, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him! ²⁴ Therefore as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as the dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust; because they have rejected the law of the LORD of Hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Yisra'el. ²⁵ Therefore is the anger of the LORD kindled against his people, and he has stretched forth his hand against them, and has struck them; and the mountains tremble, and their dead bodies are as refuse in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. ²⁶ He will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will hiss for them from the end of the eretz; and, behold, they shall come with speed swiftly. ²⁷ None shall be weary nor stumble among them; none shall slumber nor sleep; neither shall the belt of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken: ²⁸ whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent; their horses' hoofs shall be accounted as flint, and their wheels as a whirlwind: ²⁹ their roaring shall be like a lioness, they shall roar like young lions; yes, they shall roar, and lay hold of the prey, and carry it away safe, and there shall be none to deliver. ³⁰ They shall roar against them in that day like the roaring of the sea: and if one look to the land, behold, darkness [and] distress; and the light is darkened in the clouds of it.