1
Let me sing for my well beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My well beloved had a vineyard in a very fruitful hill:
2
and he dug it, and gathered out the stones of it, 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.
3
Now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, please judge between me and my vineyard.
4
What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? why, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?
5
Now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge of it, and it shall be eaten up; I will break down the wall of it, and it shall be trodden down:
6
and 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 on it.
7
For the vineyard of Yahweh of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for justice, but, behold, oppression; for righteousness, but, behold, a cry.
8
Woe to those who join house to house, who lay field to field, until there be no room, and you be made to dwell alone in the midst of the land!