Isaiah 3-5

Isaiah 3

¹For behold, the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, will take away from Jerusalem and from Judah stay and staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water,

²the mighty man and the man of war, the judge and the prophet, and the diviner and the elder,

³the captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the counsellor, and the clever among artificers, and the one versed in enchantments.

⁴And I will appoint youths as their princes, and children shall rule over them.

⁵And the people shall be oppressed one by the other, and each by his neighbour; the child will be insolent against the elder, and the base against the honourable.

⁶When a man shall take hold of his brother, in his father's house, and shall say: Thou hast clothing; be our chief, and let this ruin be under thy hand;

⁷he will lift up his hand in that day, saying, I cannot be a healer, and in my house there is neither bread nor clothing; ye shall not make me a chief of the people.

⁸For Jerusalem stumbleth and Judah falleth, because their tongue and their doings are against Jehovah, to provoke the eyes of his glory.

⁹The look of their face doth witness against them, and they declare their sin as Sodom: they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have brought evil upon themselves.

¹⁰Say ye of the righteous that it shall be well with him, for they shall eat the fruit of their doings.

¹¹Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him, because the desert of his hands shall be rendered unto him.

¹²As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. My people! they that guide thee mislead thee, and destroy the way of thy paths.

¹³Jehovah setteth himself to plead, and standeth to judge the peoples.

¹⁴Jehovah will enter into judgment with the elders of his people and their princes, saying: It is ye that have eaten up the vineyard: the spoil of the poor is in your houses.

¹⁵What mean ye that ye crush my people, and grind the faces of the afflicted? saith the Lord, Jehovah of hosts.

¹⁶And Jehovah said, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched-out neck and wanton eyes, and go along mincing, and making a tinkling with their feet;

¹⁷therefore the Lord will make bald the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and Jehovah will lay bare their secret parts.

¹⁸In that day the Lord will take away the ornament of anklets, and the little suns and crescents,

¹⁹the pearl-drops, and the bracelets, and the veils,

²⁰the head-dresses, and the stepping chains, and the girdles, and the scent-boxes, and the amulets;

²¹the finger-rings, and the nose-rings;

²²the festival-robes, and the tunics, and the mantles, and the wallets;

²³the mirrors, and the fine linen bodices, and the turbans, and the flowing veils.

²⁴And it shall come to pass, instead of perfume there shall be rottenness; and instead of a girdle, a rope; and instead of well-set hair, baldness; and instead of a robe of display, a girding of sackcloth; brand instead of beauty.

²⁵Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the fight;

²⁶and her gates shall lament and mourn; and, stripped, she shall sit upon the ground.

Isaiah 4

¹And seven women shall take hold of one man in that day, saying, Our own bread will we eat, and with our own garments will we be clothed; only let us be called by thy name; -- take away our reproach!

²In that day there shall be a sprout of Jehovah for beauty and glory, and the fruit of the earth for excellency and for ornament for those that are escaped of Israel.

³And it shall come to pass that he who remaineth in Zion, and he that is left in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, -- every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem;

⁴when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have scoured out the blood of Jerusalem from its midst, by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning.

⁵And Jehovah will create over every dwelling-place of mount Zion, and over its convocations, a cloud by day and a smoke, and the brightness of a flame of fire by night: for over all the glory shall be a covering.

⁶And there shall be a tabernacle for shade by day from the heat, and for a shelter and for a covert from storm and from rain.

Isaiah 5

¹I will sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard: My well-beloved had a vineyard upon a fruitful hill.

²And he dug it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine; and he built a tower in the midst of it, and also hewed out a winepress therein; and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes.

³And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, between me and my vineyard.

⁴What was there yet to do to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? --

⁵And now, let me tell you what I am about to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it shall be eaten up; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trodden under foot;

⁶and I will make it a waste -- it shall not be pruned nor cultivated, but there shall come up briars and thorns; and I will command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

⁷For the vineyard of Jehovah of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah the plant of his delight: and he looked for justice, and behold, blood-shedding; for righteousness, and behold, a cry.

⁸Woe unto them that add house to house, that join field to field, until there is no more room, and that ye dwell yourselves alone in the midst of the land!

⁹In mine ears Jehovah of hosts hath said, Many houses shall assuredly become a desolation, great and excellent ones, without inhabitant.

¹⁰Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield an ephah.

¹¹Woe unto them that, rising early in the morning, run after strong drink; that linger till twilight, till wine inflameth them!

¹²And harp and lyre, tambour and flute, and wine are in their banquets; but they regard not the work of Jehovah, nor do they see the operation of his hands.

¹³Therefore my people are led away captive from lack of knowledge, and their nobility die of famine, and their multitude are parched with thirst.

¹⁴Therefore doth Sheol enlarge its desire, and open its mouth without measure; and her splendour shall descend into it, and her multitude, and her tumult, and all that is joyful within her.

¹⁵And the mean man shall be bowed down, and the great man brought low, and the eyes of the lofty shall be brought low;

¹⁶and Jehovah of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and the holy God hallowed in righteousness.

¹⁷And the lambs shall feed as on their pasture, and the waste places of the fat ones shall strangers eat.

¹⁸Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as with cart-ropes!

¹⁹who say, Let him hasten, let him speed his work, that we may see it; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it!

²⁰Woe unto them 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 unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and intelligent in their own esteem!

²²Woe unto them that are mighty for drinking wine, and men valiant to mix strong drink;

²³who justify the wicked for a bribe, and turn away the righteousness of the righteous from them!

²⁴Therefore as a tongue of fire devoureth the stubble, and dry grass sinketh down in the flame, their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust; for they have rejected the law of Jehovah of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

²⁵Therefore is the anger of Jehovah kindled against his people, and he hath stretched out his hand against them and hath smitten them; and the mountains trembled, and their carcases are become as dung in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still.

²⁶And he will lift up a banner to the nations afar off, and will hiss for one from the end of the earth; and behold, it will come rapidly and lightly.

²⁷None among them is weary, none stumbleth; they slumber not, nor sleep; none hath the girdle of his loins loosed, nor the thong of his sandals broken;

²⁸their arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent; their horses' hoofs are reckoned as the flint, and their wheels as a whirlwind.

²⁹Their roaring is like a lioness, they roar as the young lions; yea, they growl, and snatch the prey, and carry it away safe, and there is none to deliver;

³⁰and they shall roar against them in that day like the roaring of the sea. And if one look upon the earth, behold darkness and distress, and the light is darkened in the heavens thereof.