1. Let me sing for my loved onea love song for his vineyard.My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside.
2. He dug it,cleared away its stones,planted it with excellent vines,built a tower inside it,and dug out a wine vat in it.He expected it to grow good grapes—but it grew rotten grapes.
3. So now, you who live in Jerusalem, you people of Judah,judge between me and my vineyard:
4. What more was there to do for my vineyardthat I haven’t done for it?When I expected it to grow good grapes,why did it grow rotten grapes?
5. Now let me tell you what I’m doing to my vineyard.I’m removing its hedge,so it will be destroyed.I’m breaking down its walls,so it will be trampled.
6. I’ll turn it into a ruin;it won’t be pruned or hoed,and thorns and thistles will grow up.I will command the clouds not to rain on it.
7. The vineyard of the Lord of heavenly forces is the house of Israel,and the people of Judah are the plantings in which God delighted.God expected justice, but there was bloodshed;righteousness, but there was a cry of distress!
8. Doom to those who acquire house after house,who annex field to field until there is no more space leftand only you live alone in the land.
9. I heard the Lord of heavenly forces say this:Many houses will become total ruins,large, fine houses, with no one living in them.
10. Ten acres of vineyardwill produce just one bath,and a homer of seedwill produce only an ephah.
11. Doom to those who wake up early in the morning to run after beer,to those who stay up late, lit up by wine.
12. They party with lyre and harp, tambourine, flute, and wine;but they ignore the Lord’s work;they can’t see what God is doing.
13. Therefore, my people go into exile since they didn’t understand—their officials are dying of hunger;so many of them are dried up with thirst.
14. Therefore, the grave opens wide its jaws,opens its mouth beyond all bounds,and the splendid multitudes will go down, with all their uproar and cheering.
15. Humanity will be humiliated;each person laid low,the eyes of the exalted laid low.