V. I Let me, I pray, sing for my beloved a song of my loved one for his vineyard. My beloved bath a vineyard, on a hill-top, the son of oil;

2 And he digged it, and cleared it of stones, and planted it with the vine of Sorek, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also hewed out a wine-fat therein; and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild-grapes.

3 And now, ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and man of Judah, judge, I pray, betwixt me and my vineyard.

4 What is there yet to do to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild-grapes?

5 And now let me, I pray, tell you what I will do to my vineyard; Ι will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be consumed; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down;

6 And I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned, nor hoed; and there shall come up briers and thorns; and I will command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

7 For the vineyard of the LORD of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the man of Judah his pleasant plant 3 and he looked for judg- ment, and behold oppression; for righteousness, and behold a cry.

6. ‘tabernacle,’ or, ‘booth,’ as i. 8; ‘pavilion,’ Ps. xviii. 11.1. ‘hill-top,’ lit. ‘horn.’2. ‘vine of Sorek’ perhaps=choice vine. Or, ‘hoped,’ ‘waited’ for to bring forth. ‘bring ’ lit. ‘make,’ same word as ‘do,’ ver. 4.5. Lit. ‘for a consuming’ (=burning, iv. 4)... ‘for a treading.’

8 Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay ﬁeld to ﬁeld, till there is no room, and ye are made to dwell alone in the midst of the earth!

9 In mine ears (said) the LORD of Hosts, If there be not many houses desolate, great ones and fair, without inhabitant!

10 Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield an ephah.