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3For now the Sovereign, the Lord of hosts,
   is taking away from Jerusalem and from Judah
support and staff—
   all support of bread,
   and all support of water—
² warrior and soldier,
   judge and prophet,
   diviner and elder,
³ captain of fifty
   and dignitary,
counsellor and skilful magician
   and expert enchanter.
⁴ And I will make boys their princes,
   and babes shall rule over them.
⁵ The people will be oppressed,
   everyone by another
   and everyone by a neighbour;
the youth will be insolent to the elder,
   and the base to the honourable.

⁶ Someone will even seize a relative,
   a member of the clan, saying,
‘You have a cloak;
   you shall be our leader,
and this heap of ruins
   shall be under your rule.’
⁷ But the other will cry out on that day, saying,
‘I will not be a healer;
   in my house there is neither bread nor cloak;
you shall not make me
   leader of the people.’
⁸ For Jerusalem has stumbled
   and Judah has fallen,
because their speech and their deeds are against the Lord,
   defying his glorious presence.

⁹ The look on their faces bears witness against them;
   they proclaim their sin like Sodom,
   they do not hide it.
Woe to them!
   For they have brought evil on themselves.
¹⁰ Tell the innocent how fortunate they are,
   for they shall eat the fruit of their labours.
¹¹ Woe to the guilty! How unfortunate they are,
   for what their hands have done shall be done to them.
¹² My people—children are their oppressors,
   and women rule over them.
O my people, your leaders mislead you,
   and confuse the course of your paths.

¹³ The Lord rises to argue his case;
   he stands to judge the peoples.
¹⁴ The Lord enters into judgement
   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.
¹⁵ What do you mean by crushing my people,
   by grinding the face of the poor? says the Lord God of hosts.

¹⁶ The 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;
¹⁷ the Lord will afflict with scabs
   the heads of the daughters of Zion,
   and the Lord will lay bare their secret parts.

18 On that day the Lord will take away the finery of the anklets, the headbands, and the crescents; ¹⁹the pendants, the bracelets, and the scarves; ²⁰the head-dresses, 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.
²⁴ Instead of perfume there will be a stench;
   and instead of a sash, a rope;
and instead of well-arranged hair, baldness;
   and instead of a rich robe, a binding of sackcloth;
   instead of beauty, shame.^*
25 Your men shall fall by the sword
   and your warriors in battle.
²⁶ And her gates shall lament and mourn;
   ravaged, she shall sit upon the ground.

The Song of the Unfruitful Vineyard

5Let me sing for my beloved
   my love-song concerning his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard
   on a very fertile hill.
² He dug it and cleared it of stones,
   and planted it with choice vines;
he built a watch-tower in the midst of it,
   and hewed out a wine vat in it;
he expected it to yield grapes,
   but it yielded wild grapes.

³ And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem
   and people of Judah,
judge between me
   and my vineyard.
⁴ What more was there to do for my vineyard
   that I have not done in it?
When I expected it to yield grapes,
   why did it yield wild grapes?

⁵ And 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.
⁶ I will make it a waste;
   it shall not be pruned or hoed,
   and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns;
I will also command the clouds
   that they rain no rain upon it.

⁷ For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts
   is the house of Israel,
and the people of Judah
   are his pleasant planting;
he expected justice,
   but saw bloodshed;
righteousness,
   but heard a cry!

Social Injustice Denounced

⁸ Ah, you who join house to house,
   who add field to field,
until there is room for no one but you,
   and you are left to live alone
   in the midst of the land!
⁹ The Lord of hosts has sworn in my hearing:
Surely many houses shall be desolate,
   large and beautiful houses, without inhabitant.
¹⁰ For ten acres of vineyard shall yield but one bath,
   and a homer of seed shall yield a mere ephah.^*

¹¹ Ah, you who rise early in the morning
   in pursuit of strong drink,
who linger in the evening
   to be inflamed by wine,
¹² whose feasts consist of lyre and harp,
   tambourine and flute and wine,
but who do not regard the deeds of the Lord,
   or see the work of his hands!
¹³ Therefore my people go into exile without knowledge;
their nobles are dying of hunger,
   and their multitude is parched with thirst.

¹⁴ Therefore Sheol has enlarged its appetite
   and opened its mouth beyond measure;
the nobility of Jerusalem^* and her multitude go down,
   her throng and all who exult in her.
¹⁵ People are bowed down, everyone is brought low,
   and the eyes of the haughty are humbled.
¹⁶ But the Lord of hosts is exalted by justice,
   and the Holy God shows himself holy by righteousness.
¹⁷ Then the lambs shall graze as in their pasture,
   fatlings and kids^* shall feed among the ruins.

¹⁸ Ah, you who drag iniquity along with cords of falsehood,
   who drag sin along as with cart-ropes,
¹⁹ who say, ‘Let him make haste,
   let him speed his work
   that we may see it;
let the plan of the Holy One of Israel hasten to fulfilment,
   that we may know it!’
²⁰ Ah, you 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 Ah, you who are wise in your own eyes,
   and shrewd in your own sight!
²² Ah, you who are heroes in drinking wine
   and valiant at mixing drink,
²³ who acquit the guilty for a bribe,
   and deprive the innocent of their rights!

Foreign Invasion Predicted

²⁴ Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble,
   and as dry grass sinks down in the flame,
so their root will become rotten,
   and their blossom go up like dust;
for they have rejected the instruction of the Lord of hosts,
   and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

²⁵ Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against his people,
   and he stretched out his hand against them and struck them;
   the mountains quaked,
and their corpses were like refuse
   in the streets.
For all this his anger has not turned away,
   and his hand is stretched out still.

²⁶ He will raise a signal for a nation far away,
   and whistle for a people at the ends of the earth;
Here they come, swiftly, speedily!
²⁷ None of them is weary, none stumbles,
   none slumbers or sleeps,
not a loincloth is loose,
   not a sandal-thong broken;
²⁸ their arrows are sharp,
   all their bows bent,
their horses’ hoofs seem like flint,
   and their wheels like the whirlwind.
²⁹ Their roaring is like a lion,
   like young lions they roar;
they growl and seize their prey,
   they carry it off, and no one can rescue.
³⁰ They will roar over it on that day,
   like the roaring of the sea.
And if one looks to the land—
   only darkness and distress;
and the light grows dark with clouds.