The Song of the Vineyard
(Luke 13:6–9)

1Let me sing now for my beloved, a song of my beloved regarding his vineyard:

Unto my beloved there was a vineyard,

a son of fatness on a hill.

2And he dug it and cleared it of stones,

and he planted it with the choicest vine;

and he built a tower in its midst,

and also a winepress he hewed out in it.

And he waited for it to make grapes,

and it made wild grapes.

3“And now, O dweller of Jerusalem

and man of Judah,

judge please,

between Me and between My vineyard.

4What could have been done more for My vineyard,

that I have not done in it?

Why—I waited for it to make grapes—

and it made wild grapes?

5And now I will let you⁺ know what I am going to do to My vineyard:

I will take away its hedge,

and it will be consumed

and the breaking down of its wall,

and it will be free for trampling.

6And I will set it as a waste—

it will not be pruned nor hoed,

and there will come up brier and thorn;

and also the clouds I will command

against raining on it with rain.”

7For the vineyard of YHWH of Hosts

is the house of Israel,

and the men of Judah

are the plant of His delight;

and He looked for justice,

and behold, bloodshed—

for righteousness,

and behold, outcry.

Woes to the Wicked

8Woe to those joining house to house;

field to field they bring near,

until there is no place to stand,

and you⁺ are made to dwell by yourselves alone in the midst of the land!

9In my hearing, YHWH of Hosts says:

“Surely many houses will be a desolation—

great and beautiful ones without one dwelling!

10For a ten yoke vineyard

will yield one bath,†

and a homer of seed

will yield an ephah.†

11Woe to those rising early in the morning

to pursue strong drink,

tarrying into the twilight

as wine inflames them!

12Are the lyre and harp and tambourine, and flute and wine,

are at their feasts;

and the work of YHWH they do not regard,

and the work of His hands they do not see.

13Therefore my people have gone into captivity

from lack of knowledge;

and its honored men go hungry,

and its multitude is parched with thirst.

14Therefore Sheol has enlarged her soul

and has opened her mouth beyond measure;

her nobles will go down—

and her crowd and her revelers and exulting—into her.

15And mankind is bent down, and each man is brought low,

and the eyes of the haughty will be brought down.

16YHWH of Hosts will be exalted in justice,

and the Holy God will show Himself holy in righteousness.

17And the lambs will graze as in their pasture,

and in the waste places of the fat ones, sojourners† will eat.

18Woe to those drawing out iniquity with cords of falsehood,

and sin with a rope of the cart,

19saying, “Let Him hurry, let Him hurry His work,

that we may see it!

Let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come,

that we may know it!”

20Woe to those saying to evil “Good,”

and to good “Evil,”

putting darkness for light

and light for darkness,

putting bitter for sweet

and sweet for bitter!

21Woe to the wise ones in their own eyes,

and before their own faces discerning.

22Woe to the mighty at drinking wine

and men of strength in mixing strong drink,

23those declaring right the wicked for a bribe,

and justice for the righteous ones they turn aside from him.

24Therefore as the tongue of fire devours the chaff

and the flame consumes the stubble,

their root will be as rottenness,

and their blossom will go up like dust,

because they have rejected the instruction of YHWH of hosts,

and the Word of the Holy One of Israel they have despised.

25Thus the anger of YHWH burns against His people;

and therefore He has stretched out His hand against them and struck them,

and the hills trembled;

and their carcasses became like refuse in the midst of the streets.

In all this, His anger is not turned away,

and still His hand is stretched out.

26And He will lift up a signal for the nations from afar,

and He will whistle to them from the end of the earth—

and behold, swiftly with haste it will come!

27No one will be weary nor stumbling among them;

he will not will he slumber and not sleep,

and not will be loosed the girdle of his loins,

and not will be broken the strap of his sandals—

28whose arrows are sharp,

and all his bows bent;

the hooves of his horses like flint are reckoned,

and his wheels like a whirlwind.

29The roaring of him is like a lion—

he roars like the young lions,

and growls and seizes prey and carries it away safely,

and there is no one delivering.

30And he will roar over it that on the day,

like the roaring of the sea.

And one looks over the land,

and behold, darkness and distress,

and the light is darkened by its clouds.

Footnotes:

10 Or ten acres of vineyard will yield one bath; ten yoke is the area ten yoke of oxen can plow in a day; one bath is approximately 5.8 gallons or 22 liters of wine.
10 That is, a homer of seed (approximately 6.24 bushels or 220 liters) will yield a tenth of its weight (an ephah) in grain.
17 LXX lambs