Isaiah 5–7

Isaiah 5–7 WEB

^5:1Let me sing for my well beloved a song of my beloved about his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. ²He dug it up, gathered out its stones, planted it with the choicest vine, built a tower in the middle of it, and also cut out a wine press in it. He looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. ³“Now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, please judge between me and my vineyard. ⁴What 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? ⁵Now 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, and it will be trampled down. ⁶I will lay it a wasteland. It won’t be pruned or hoed, but it will grow briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it.” ⁷For the vineyard of the LORD of Armies is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant. He looked for justice, but behold, oppression, for righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress. ⁸Woe 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 middle of the land! ⁹In my ears, the LORD of Armies says: “Surely many houses will be desolate, even great and beautiful, unoccupied. ¹⁰For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield an ephah.” ¹¹Woe 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! ¹²The harp, lyre, tambourine, and flute, with wine, are at their feasts; but they don’t respect the work of the LORD, neither have they considered the operation of his hands. ¹³Therefore my people go into captivity for lack of knowledge. Their honorable men are famished, and their multitudes are parched with thirst. ¹⁴Therefore Sheol has enlarged its desire, and opened its mouth without measure; and their glory, their multitude, their pomp, and he who rejoices among them, descend into it. ¹⁵So man is brought low, mankind is humbled, and the eyes of the arrogant ones are humbled; ¹⁶but the LORD of Armies is exalted in justice, and God the Holy One is sanctified in righteousness. ¹⁷Then the lambs will graze as in their pasture, and strangers will eat the ruins of the rich. ¹⁸Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, and wickedness as with cart rope, ¹⁹who say, “Let him make haste, let him hasten his work, that we may see it; let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come, that we may know it!” ²⁰Woe 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! ²¹Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! ²²Woe to those who are mighty to drink wine, and champions at mixing strong drink; ²³who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice for the innocent! ²⁴Therefore 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 Armies, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. ²⁵Therefore the LORD’s anger burns against his people, and he has stretched out his hand against them and has struck them. The mountains tremble, and their dead bodies are as refuse in the middle of the streets. For all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is still stretched out. ²⁶He will lift up a banner to the nations from far away, and he will whistle for them from the end of the earth. Behold, they will come speedily and swiftly. ²⁷No one shall be weary nor stumble among them; no one shall slumber nor sleep, neither shall the belt of their waist be untied, nor the strap of their sandals be broken, ²⁸whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent. Their horses’ hoofs will be like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind. ²⁹Their roaring will be like a lioness. They will roar like young lions. Yes, they shall roar, and seize their prey and carry it off, and there will be no one to deliver. ³⁰They will roar against them in that day like the roaring of the sea. If one looks to the land, behold, darkness and distress. The light is darkened in its clouds.

^6:1In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple. ²Above him stood the seraphim. Each one had six wings. With two he covered his face. With two he covered his feet. With two he flew. ³One called to another, and said, “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of Armies! The whole earth is full of his glory!” ⁴The foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. ⁵Then I said, “Woe is me! For I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of Armies!” ⁶Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar. ⁷He touched my mouth with it, and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin forgiven.” ⁸I heard the Lord’s voice, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am. Send me!” ⁹He said, “Go, and tell this people, ‘You hear indeed, but don’t understand. You see indeed, but don’t perceive.’ ¹⁰Make the heart of this people fat. Make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, and turn again, and be healed.” ¹¹Then I said, “Lord, how long?” He answered, “Until cities are waste without inhabitant, houses without man, the land becomes utterly waste, ¹²and the LORD has removed men far away, and the forsaken places are many within the land. ¹³If there is a tenth left in it, that also will in turn be consumed, as a terebinth, and as an oak whose stump remains when they are cut down, so the holy seed is its stump.”

^7:1In the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, Rezin the king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it. ²David’s house was told, “Syria is allied with Ephraim.” His heart trembled, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the forest tremble with the wind. ³Then the LORD said to Isaiah, “Go out now to meet Ahaz, you, and Shearjashub your son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, on the highway of the fuller’s field. ⁴Tell him, ‘Be careful, and keep calm. Don’t be afraid, neither let your heart be faint because of these two tails of smoking torches, for the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria, and of the son of Remaliah. ⁵Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have plotted evil against you, saying, ⁶“Let’s go up against Judah, and tear it apart, and let’s divide it among ourselves, and set up a king within it, even the son of Tabeel.” ⁷This is what the Lord GOD says: “It shall not stand, neither shall it happen.” ⁸For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin. Within sixty-five years Ephraim shall be broken in pieces, so that it shall not be a people. ⁹The head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah’s son. If you will not believe, surely you shall not be established.’” ¹⁰The LORD spoke again to Ahaz, saying, ¹¹“Ask a sign of the LORD your God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.” ¹²But Ahaz said, “I won’t ask. I won’t tempt the LORD.” ¹³He said, “Listen now, house of David. Is it not enough for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God also? ¹⁴Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin will conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. ¹⁵He shall eat butter and honey when he knows to refuse the evil and choose the good. ¹⁶For before the child knows to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you abhor shall be forsaken. ¹⁷The LORD will bring on you, on your people, and on your father’s house days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah, even the king of Assyria. ¹⁸It will happen in that day that the LORD will whistle for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. ¹⁹They shall come, and shall all rest in the desolate valleys, in the clefts of the rocks, on all thorn hedges, and on all pastures. ²⁰In that day the Lord will shave with a razor that is hired in the parts beyond the River, even with the king of Assyria, the head and the hair of the feet; and it shall also consume the beard. ²¹It shall happen in that day that a man shall keep alive a young cow, and two sheep. ²²It shall happen, that because of the abundance of milk which they shall give he shall eat butter, for everyone will eat butter and honey that is left within the land. ²³It will happen in that day that every place where there were a thousand vines worth a thousand silver shekels, will be for briers and thorns. ²⁴People will go there with arrows and with bow, because all the land will be briers and thorns. ²⁵All the hills that were cultivated with the hoe, you shall not come there for fear of briers and thorns; but it shall be for the sending out of oxen, and for sheep to tread on.”