Judah arraigned
    did it yield wild grapes?
   5   Now listen while I tell you
  what I will do to my vineyard:
I will take away its fences and let it be burnt,
I will break down its walls and let it be trampled underfoot,
     6   and so I will leave it derelict;
  it shall be neither pruned nor hoed,
  but shall grow thorns and briars.
    Then I will command the clouds
  to send no more rain upon it.
7   The vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is Israel,
  and the men of Judah are the plant he cherished.
He looked for justice and found it denied,
  for righteousness but heard cries of distress.


8   Shame on you! you who add house to house
  and join field to field,
  until not an acre remains,
and you are left to dwell alone in the land.
   9   The Lord of Hosts has sworn ^note in my hearing:
Many houses shall go to ruin,
fine large houses shall be uninhabited.
10   Five acres ^note of vineyard shall yield only a gallon, ^note
and ten bushels ^note of seed return only a peck. ^note
   11   Shame on you! you who rise early in the morning
    to go in pursuit of liquor
and draw out the evening inflamed with wine,
   12   at whose feasts there are harp and lute,
  tabor and pipe and wine,
  who have no eyes for the work of the Lord,
    and never see the things that he has done.
   13   Therefore my people are dwindling away
    all unawares;
    the nobles are starving to death,
  and the common folk die of thirst.
14   Therefore Sheol gapes with straining throat
  and has opened her measureless jaws:
  down go nobility and common people,
  their noisy bustling mob. ^note
15   Mankind is brought low, men are humbled,
    humbled are haughty looks.

Judah arraigned
16   But the Lord of Hosts sits high in judgement,
and by righteousness the holy God shows himself holy.
17   Young rams shall feed where fat bullocks once pastured,
and kids shall graze broad acres where cattle grew fat. ^note
18   Shame on you! you who drag wickedness along like a tethered sheep
  and sin like a heifer on a rope,
   19   who say, ‘Let the Lord ^note make haste,
  let him speed up his work for us to see it,
  let the purpose of the Holy One of Israel
  be soon fulfilled, so that we may know it.’
20   Shame on you! you who call evil good and good evil,
who turn darkness into light and light into darkness,
who make bitter sweet and sweet bitter.
   21   Shame on you! you who are wise in your own eyes
    and prudent in your own esteem.
22   Shame on you! you mighty topers, valiant mixers of drink,
   23   who for a bribe acquit the guilty
  and deny justice to those in the right.


26    ^note So he will hoist a signal to a nation far away,
  he will whistle to call them from the end of the earth;
  and see, they come, speedy and swift;
   27   none is weary, not one of them stumbles,
    not one slumbers or sleeps.
  None has his belt loose about his waist
    or a broken thong to his sandals.
28   Their arrows are sharpened and their bows all strung,
  their horses' hooves flash like shooting stars,
    their chariot-wheels are like the whirlwind.
   29   Their growling is the growling of a lioness,
    they growl like young lions,
  which roar as they seize the prey
    and carry it beyond reach of rescue.
   30   They shall roar over it on that day
    like the roaring of the sea.
If a man looks over the earth, behold, darkness closing in,
  and the light darkened on the hill-tops ^note!

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