1. I will sing a songabout my friend's vineyardthat was on the sideof a fertile hill.
2. My friend dug the ground,removed the stones,and planted the best vines.He built a watchtowerand dug a pit in rocky groundfor pressing the grapes.He hoped they would be sweet,but bitter grapeswere all it produced.
3. Listen, people of Jerusalemand of Judah!You be the judge of meand my vineyard.
4. What more could I have donefor my vineyard?I hoped for sweet grapes,but bitter grapeswere all that grew.
5. Now I will let you knowwhat I am going to do.I will cut down the hedgeand tear down the wall.My vineyard will be trampledand left in ruins.
6. It will turn into a desert,neither pruned nor hoed;it will be coveredwith thorns and briars.I will command the cloudsnot to send rain.
7. I am the Lord All-Powerful!Israel is the vineyard,and Judah is the gardenI tended with care.I had hoped for honestyand for justice,but dishonestyand cries for mercywere all I found.
8. You are in for trouble! You take over house after house and field after field, until there is no room left for anyone else in all the land.
9. But the Lord All-Powerful has made this promise to me:Those large and beautiful homes will be left empty, with no one to take care of them.
10. Four hectares of grapevines will produce only twenty-seven litres of juice, and a hundred and eighty litres of seed will produce merely eighteen litres of grain.
11. You are in for trouble! You get up early to start drinking, and you keep it up late into the night.
12. At your drinking parties you have the music of stringed instruments, tambourines, and flutes. But you never even think about all the Lord has done,
13. and so his people know nothing about him. That's why many of you will be dragged off to foreign lands. Your leaders will starve to death, and everyone else will suffer from thirst.
14. The world of the dead has opened its mouth wide and is eagerly waiting for the leaders of Jerusalem and for its noisy crowds, especially for those who take pride in that city.