Isaiah · 30 verses
Isaiah 5
Every verse links to the people and places named in it, and to the passages readers connect it with.
The chapter
What happens here
Atlas's own reading, written from this chapter and nothing else, and published only once a person has approved it. Each scene names the verses it covers; the names inside it link to the people and places they name.
The distant nations come at a trot, with every arrow sharpened, every bow strung, every belt fastened, and not one sandal strap broken. Their arrival is the last movement of a chapter that began with a lovingly prepared vineyard and ended with darkness swallowing the land.
The vineyard that answered with sour grapesvv. 1–7
A vineyard is planted on a fertile hill with almost comical thoroughness: stones cleared, finest vines planted, watchtower built, winepress dug. The owner waits for good grapes and receives sour ones, then asks Jerusalem and Judah to judge between him and his vineyard. The answer is a dismantled hedge, a broken wall, thorns, briers, and a sky instructed not to rain. The little song then explains its own riddle: the vineyard is Israel, Judah the planting, and the expected harvest of justice has turned into bloodshed and a cry of distress.
The ropes, the wine, and the reversalsvv. 8–25
The woes gather around houses joined to houses, fields swallowed by fields, mornings devoted to strong drink, and feasts where the instruments play while the LORD’s work goes unnoticed. Sin is not merely committed here; it is hauled along, first by cords and then by cart ropes, as though misconduct had acquired farm equipment. The chapter’s moral vocabulary is then put through a looking-glass: evil is called good, darkness light, bitter sweet. The clever, the drinkers, and the bribed judges all meet the same consuming end, while the mountains quake and corpses lie in the streets.
The whistle from the ends of the earthvv. 26–30
The LORD lifts a banner and whistles, and the distant nations arrive with unnerving efficiency. None grows weary, stumbles, slumbers, or sleeps; no belt loosens, no sandal strap breaks. Their horses’ hooves are flint, their wheels a whirlwind, and their roar belongs first to lions and finally to the sea. A man looking over the land finds darkness and distress, with even the light hidden behind clouds.
The text
Read it
Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.
Isa 5:1I will sing for my beloved a song of his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.
Isa 5:2He dug it up and cleared the stones and planted the finest vines. He built a watchtower in the middle and dug out a winepress as well. He waited for the vineyard to yield good grapes, but the fruit it produced was sour!
Isa 5:3“And now, O dwellers of Jerusalem and men of Judah, I exhort you to judge between Me and My vineyard.
Isa 5:4What more could have been done for My vineyard than I have done for it? Why, when I expected sweet grapes, did it bring forth sour fruit?
Isa 5:5Now I will tell you what I am about to do to My vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be consumed; I will tear down its wall, and it will be trampled.
Isa 5:6I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and thorns and briers will grow up. I will command the clouds that rain shall not fall on it.”
Isa 5:7For the vineyard of the LORD of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the plant of His delight. He looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard a cry of distress.
Isa 5:8Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field until no place is left and you live alone in the land.
Isa 5:9I heard the LORD of Hosts declare: “Surely many houses will become desolate, great mansions left unoccupied.
Isa 5:10For ten acres of vineyard will yield but a bath of wine, and a homer of seed only an ephah of grain.”
Isa 5:11Woe to those who rise early in the morning in pursuit of strong drink, who linger into the evening, to be inflamed by wine.
Isa 5:12At their feasts are the lyre and harp, tambourines and flutes and wine. They disregard the actions of the LORD and fail to see the work of His hands.
Isa 5:13Therefore My people will go into exile for their lack of understanding; their dignitaries are starving and their masses are parched with thirst.
Isa 5:14Therefore Sheol enlarges its throat and opens wide its enormous jaws, and down go Zion’s nobles and masses, her revelers and carousers!
Isa 5:15So mankind will be brought low, and each man humbled; the arrogant will lower their eyes.
Isa 5:16But the LORD of Hosts will be exalted by His justice, and the holy God will show Himself holy in righteousness.
Isa 5:17Lambs will graze as in their own pastures, and strangers will feed in the ruins of the wealthy.
Isa 5:18Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of deceit and pull sin along with cart ropes,
Isa 5:19to those who say, “Let Him hurry and hasten His work so that we may see it! Let the plan of the Holy One of Israel come so that we may know it!”
Isa 5:20Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who turn darkness to light and light to darkness, who replace bitter with sweet and sweet with bitter.
Isa 5:21Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.
Isa 5:22Woe to those who are heroes in drinking wine and champions in mixing strong drink,
Isa 5:23who acquit the guilty for a bribe and deprive the innocent of justice.
Isa 5:24Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes the straw, and as dry grass shrivels in the flame, so their roots will decay and their blossoms will blow away like dust; for they have rejected the instruction of the LORD of Hosts and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
Isa 5:25Therefore the anger of the LORD burns against His people; His hand is raised against them to strike them down. The mountains quake, and the corpses lie like refuse in the streets. Despite all this, His anger is not turned away; His hand is still upraised.
Isa 5:26He lifts a banner for the distant nations and whistles for those at the ends of the earth. Behold—how speedily and swiftly they come!
Isa 5:27None of them grows weary or stumbles; no one slumbers or sleeps. No belt is loose and no sandal strap is broken.
Isa 5:28Their arrows are sharpened, and all their bows are strung. The hooves of their horses are like flint; their chariot wheels are like a whirlwind.
Isa 5:29Their roaring is like that of a lion; they roar like young lions. They growl and seize their prey; they carry it away, and no one can rescue it.
Isa 5:30In that day they will roar over it, like the roaring of the sea. If one looks over the land, he will see darkness and distress; even the light will be obscured by clouds.
02 — Read alongside
Where this is echoed
Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 506 passages were voted onto 30 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.
- 20Proverbs 17:15Acquitting the guilty and condemning the righteous—both are detestable to the LORD.
- 202 Timothy 3:1–5But understand this: In the last days terrible times will come.
- 20Luke 16:15So He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is prized among men is detestable before God.
- 20Malachi 2:17You have wearied the LORD with your words; yet you ask, “How have we wearied Him?” By saying, “All who do evil are good in the sight of the LORD, and in them He delights,” or, “Where is the God of justice?”
- 20Job 17:12They have turned night into day, making light seem near in the face of darkness.
- 20Matthew 6:22–23The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light.
- 202 Peter 2:1Now there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves.
- 20Amos 5:7There are those who turn justice into wormwood and cast righteousness to the ground.
- 202 Peter 2:18–19With lofty but empty words, they appeal to the sensual passions of the flesh and entice those who are just escaping from others who live in error.
- 20Luke 11:34–35Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are bad, your body is full of darkness.
- 20Malachi 3:15So now we call the arrogant blessed. Not only do evildoers prosper, they even test God and escape.’”
- 16Psalms 46:10“Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted over the earth.”
- 2Jeremiah 2:21I had planted you like a choice vine from the very best seed. How could you turn yourself before Me into a rotten, wild vine?
- 20Matthew 15:3–6Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?
- 211 Corinthians 3:18–20Let no one deceive himself. If any of you thinks he is wise in this age, he should become a fool, so that he may become wise.
- 1Mark 12:1Then Jesus began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a wine vat, and built a watchtower. Then he rented it out to some tenants and went away on a journey.
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