Isaiah 3-5

Isaiah 3

¹For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth 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 ancient;

³the captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the skilful enchanter.

⁴And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.

⁵And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.

⁶When a man shall take hold of his brother in the house of his father, saying, Thou hast clothing, be thou our ruler, and let this ruin be under thy hand:

⁷in that day shall he lift up his voice, saying, I will not be an healer; for in my house is neither bread nor clothing: ye shall not make me ruler of the people.

⁸For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen: because their tongue and their doings are against the LORD, to provoke the eyes of his glory.

⁹The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto 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: for the reward of his hands shall be given him.

¹²As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.

¹³The LORD standeth up to plead, and standeth to judge the peoples.

¹⁴The LORD will enter into judgment with the elders of his people, and the princes thereof: 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 face of the poor? saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts.

¹⁶Moreover the LORD said, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet:

¹⁷therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the LORD will lay bare their secret parts.

¹⁸In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their anklets, and the cauls, and the crescents;

¹⁹the pendants, and the bracelets, and the mufflers;

²⁰the headtires, and the ankle chains, and the sashes, and the perfume boxes, and the amulets;

²¹the rings, and the nose jewels;

²²the festival robes, and the mantles, and the shawls, and the satchels;

²³the hand mirrors, and the fine linen, and the turbans, and the veils.

²⁴And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet spices there shall be rottenness; and instead of a girdle a rope; and instead of well set hair baldness; and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth: branding instead of beauty.

²⁵Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war.

²⁶And her gates shall lament and mourn; and she shall be desolate and sit upon the ground.

Isaiah 4

¹And seven women shall take hold of one man in that day, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name; take thou away our reproach.

²In that day shall the branch of the LORD be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel.

³And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even 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 purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning.

⁵And the LORD will create over the whole habitation of mount Zion, and over her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night: for over all the glory shall be spread a canopy.

⁶And there shall be a pavilion for a shadow in the day-time from the heat, and for a refuge and for a covert from storm and from rain.

Isaiah 5

¹Let me sing for my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved had a vineyard in a very fruitful hill:

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

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

⁴What could have been done more 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 go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; I will break down the fence thereof, and it shall be trodden down:

⁶and I will lay it waste; it shall not be pruned nor hoed; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

⁷For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.

⁸Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no room, and ye be made to dwell alone in the midst of the land!

⁹In mine ears saith the LORD of hosts, Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant.

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

¹¹Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that tarry late into the night, till wine inflame them!

¹²And the harp and the lute, the tabret and the pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of the LORD, neither have they considered the operation of his hands.

¹³Therefore my people are gone into captivity, for lack of knowledge: and their honourable men are famished, and their multitude are parched with thirst.

¹⁴Therefore hell hath enlarged her desire, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth among them, descend into it.

¹⁵And the mean man is bowed down, and the great man is humbled, and the eyes of the lofty are humbled:

¹⁶but the LORD of hosts is exalted in judgment, and God the Holy One is sanctified in righteousness.

¹⁷Then shall the lambs feed as in their pasture, and the waste places of the fat ones shall wanderers eat.

¹⁸Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope:

¹⁹that say, Let him make speed, let him hasten 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 that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

²¹Woe unto them that are wise their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!

²²Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink:

²³which justify the wicked for a reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!

²⁴Therefore as the tongue of fire devoureth the stubble, and as the dry grass sinketh 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 hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

²⁵Therefore is the anger of the LORD kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them, and the hills did tremble, and their carcases were as refuse in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

²⁶And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will hiss for them from the end of the earth: and, behold, they shall come with speed swiftly:

²⁷None shall be weary nor stumble among them; none shall slumber nor sleep; neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken:

²⁸whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent; their horses’ hoofs shall be counted like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind:

²⁹their roaring shall be like a lion, they shall roar like young lions: yea, they shall roar, and lay hold of the prey, and carry it away safe, and there shall be none to deliver.

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