1. I will sing for the one I lovea song about his vineyard:my loved one had a vineyardon a fertile hillside.
2. He dug it up and cleared it of stonesand planted it with the choicest vines.He built a watchtower in itand cut out a winepress as well.Then he looked for a crop of good grapes,but it yielded only bad fruit.
3. ‘Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah,judge between me and my vineyard.
4. What more could have been done for my vineyardthan I have done for it?When I looked for good grapes,why did it yield only bad?
5. Now I will tell youwhat I am going to do to my vineyard:I will take away its hedge,and it will be destroyed;I will break down its wall,and it will be trampled.
6. I will make it a wasteland,neither pruned nor cultivated,and briers and thorns will grow there.I will command the cloudsnot to rain on it.’
7. The vineyard of the Lord Almightyis the nation of Israel,and the people of Judahare the vines he delighted in.And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed;for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.
8. Woe to you who add house to houseand join field to fieldtill no space is leftand you live alone in the land.
9. The Lord Almighty has declared in my hearing:‘Surely the great houses will become desolate,the fine mansions left without occupants.
10. A ten-acre vineyard will produce only a bath of wine;a homer of seed will yield only an ephah of grain.’
11. Woe to those who rise early in the morningto run after their drinks,who stay up late at nighttill they are inflamed with wine.
12. They have harps and lyres at their banquets,pipes and tambourines and wine,but they have no regard for the deeds of the Lord,no respect for the work of his hands.