What happensPermalink
Isaiah sings of God lovingly planting and tending a vineyard, expecting good grapes but receiving only sour fruit. God therefore removes its protection and allows it to become desolate. The vineyard is Israel and Judah: God expected justice and righteousness but found bloodshed and cries of distress. Isaiah pronounces six woes against greed, self-indulgence, defiant sin, moral inversion, pride, and corrupt justice. Their rejection of God’s word will bring ruin, exile, death, and invasion by a terrifying foreign army.
Why it mattersPermalink
God’s carefully tended vineyard has produced injustice instead of righteousness, so He will expose Judah’s corruption and remove its protection. The six woes show that greed, self-indulgence, defiant sin, moral inversion, pride, and bribery all grow from despising God’s word. His judgment reveals His holiness and the deadly consequences of persistent rebellion.
Key versePermalink
Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root will be as rottenness, and their blossom go up like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts, and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.