A song about the people who were like Yahweh’s vineyard

5 Now I will sing a song about my dear friend,

and about his vineyard.

The vineyard was on a very fertile hillside.

2 My friend plowed the ground and cleared away the stones.

Then he planted very good grapevines on that ground.

In the middle of the vineyard, he built a watchtower,

and he dug a ◄winepress/pit for squeezing the grapes►.

Then he waited each year to harvest some good grapes,

but the vines produced only sour grapes.

3 Now this is what Yahweh says:

“You people of Jerusalem and other places in Judah,

I am like the friend, and you are like my vineyard;

so you judge which of us has done what is right.

4 What more could I have done for you

than what I have already done?

I expected you to be doing good deeds [MET],

so it is disgusting that [RHQ] you were doing only evil things

like the vineyard that produced only sour grapes!

5 So, I will now tell you what I will do to Judah, the place that is like my vineyard.

I will cut down the hedges,

and they will be destroyed.

I will tear down the walls of the cities

and allow wild animals to trample the land.

6 I will cause it to become a wasteland

where the vines are not pruned and the ground is not hoed.

It will be a place where briers and thorns [DOU] grow.

And I will command that no rain will fall on it.”

7 The nation of Israel is like [MET] the vineyard of the Commander of the armies of angels.

The people of Judah are like the garden that was pleasing to him.

He expected you to be doing what is just/fair,

but instead, what he saw was people murdering [MTY] others.

He expected that you would be doing righteous deeds,

but instead, he heard cries from people who were being attacked violently.