Deuteronomy 8:12

the king said to Nathan the prophet, “See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but God’s ark dwells within curtains.”

Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Hamon. He leased out the vineyard to keepers. Each was to bring a thousand shekels of silver for its fruit.

You will sow, but won’t reap. You will tread the olives, but won’t anoint yourself with oil; and crush grapes, but won’t drink the wine.

You will betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her. You will build a house, and you won’t dwell in it. You will plant a vineyard, and not use its fruit.

They took fortified cities and a rich land, and possessed houses full of all good things, cisterns dug out, vineyards, olive groves, and fruit trees in abundance. So they ate, were filled, became fat, and delighted themselves in your great goodness.

For they have not served you in their kingdom, and in your great goodness that you gave them, and in the large and rich land which you gave before them. They didn’t turn from their wicked works.

Make the heart of this people fat. Make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, and turn again, and be healed.”

This will not be your cauldron, neither will you be the meat in the middle of it. I will judge you in the border of Israel.

Utter a parable to the rebellious house, and tell them, ‘The Lord Yahweh says, “Put the cauldron on the fire. Put it on, and also pour water into it.

According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted. Therefore they have forgotten me.

“You looked for much, and, behold, it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why?” says Yahweh of Armies, “Because of my house that lies waste, while each of you is busy with his own house.

The Rock: his work is perfect, for all his ways are just. A God of faithfulness who does no wrong, just and right is he.

But my people didn’t listen to my voice. Israel desired none of me.

He will call to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation!’

lest I be full, deny you, and say, ‘Who is Yahweh?’ or lest I be poor, and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.

I spoke to you in your prosperity; but you said, ‘I will not listen.’ This has been your way from your youth, that you didn’t obey my voice.

Listen to this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who tell their husbands, “Bring us drinks!”

Their wealth will become a plunder, and their houses a desolation. Yes, they will build houses, but won’t inhabit them. They will plant vineyards, but won’t drink their wine.

From the days of your fathers you have turned away from my ordinances, and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says Yahweh of Armies. “But you say, ‘How shall we return?’

But you have dishonored the poor man. Don’t the rich oppress you, and personally drag you before the courts?

They said, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top reaches to the sky, and let’s make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad on the surface of the whole earth.”

I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey; to the place of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.

Pharaoh said, “Who is Yahweh, that I should listen to his voice to let Israel go? I don’t know Yahweh, and moreover I will not let Israel go.”

“You shall not misuse the name of Yahweh your God, for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless who misuses his name.

and houses full of all good things which you didn’t fill, and cisterns dug out which you didn’t dig, vineyards and olive trees which you didn’t plant, and you shall eat and be full;

Because you didn’t serve Yahweh your God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart, by reason of the abundance of all things;

Yahweh said to Moses, “Behold, you shall sleep with your fathers. This people will rise up and play the prostitute after the strange gods of the land where they go to be among them, and will forsake me and break my covenant which I have made with them.

Is this the way you repay Yahweh, foolish and unwise people? Isn’t he your father who has bought you? He has made you and established you.

But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked. You have grown fat. You have grown thick. You have become sleek. Then he abandoned God who made him, and rejected the Rock of his salvation.

He was king in Jeshurun, when the heads of the people were gathered, all the tribes of Israel together.

“There is no one like God, Jeshurun, who rides on the heavens for your help, in his excellency on the skies.

Joshua said to all the people, “Behold, this stone shall be a witness against us, for it has heard all Yahweh’s words which he spoke to us. It shall be therefore a witness against you, lest you deny your God.”

Why do you kick at my sacrifice and at my offering, which I have commanded in my habitation, and honor your sons above me, to make yourselves fat with the best of all the offerings of Israel my people?’

Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and reared up for himself the pillar which is in the king’s valley, for he said, “I have no son to keep my name in memory.” He called the pillar after his own name. It is called Absalom’s monument, to this day.

Yahweh lives! Blessed be my rock! Exalted be God, the rock of my salvation,

When Solomon had finished the building of Yahweh’s house, the king’s house, and all Solomon’s desire which he was pleased to do,

“There is a treaty between me and you, between my father and your father. Behold, I have sent to you a present of silver and gold. Go, break your treaty with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart from me.”

and over the vineyards was Shimei the Ramathite; and over the increase of the vineyards for the wine cellars was Zabdi the Shiphmite;

Solomon brought up Pharaoh’s daughter out of David’s city to the house that he had built for her; for he said, “My wife shall not dwell in the house of David king of Israel, because the places where Yahweh’s ark has come are holy.”

He built towers in the wilderness, and dug out many cisterns, for he had much livestock; in the lowland also, and in the plain. He had farmers and vineyard keepers in the mountains and in the fruitful fields, for he loved farming.

Their inward thought is that their houses will endure forever, and their dwelling places to all generations. They name their lands after themselves.

They remembered that God was their rock, the Most High God, their redeemer.

Oh come, let’s sing to Yahweh. Let’s shout aloud to the rock of our salvation!

Serve Yahweh with gladness. Come before his presence with singing.

“Surely I will not come into the structure of my house, nor go up into my bed;

In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider; yes, God has made the one side by side with the other, to the end that man should not find out anything after him.

My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms from the vineyards of En Gedi.

Let’s go early up to the vineyards. Let’s see whether the vine has budded, its blossom is open, and the pomegranates are in flower. There I will give you my love.

Ah sinful nation, a people loaded with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken Yahweh. They have despised the Holy One of Israel. They are estranged and backward.

Let me sing for my well beloved a song of my beloved about his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fruitful hill.

Gladness is taken away, and joy out of the fruitful field; and in the vineyards there will be no singing, neither joyful noise. Nobody will tread out wine in the presses. I have made the shouting stop.

This is what Yahweh who made you, and formed you from the womb, who will help you says: “Don’t be afraid, Jacob my servant; and you, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen.

Yahweh’s word came to me the second time, saying, “What do you see?” I said, “I see a boiling cauldron; and it is tipping away from the north.”

Generation, consider Yahweh’s word. Have I been a wilderness to Israel? Or a land of thick darkness? Why do my people say, ‘We have broken loose. We will come to you no more?’

“How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me, and sworn by what are no gods. When I had fed them to the full, they committed adultery, and assembled themselves in troops at the prostitutes’ houses.

They have grown fat. They shine; yes, they excel in deeds of wickedness. They don’t plead the cause, the cause of the fatherless, that they may prosper; and they don’t defend the rights of the needy.

Therefore I will give their wives to others and their fields to those who will possess them. For everyone from the least even to the greatest is given to covetousness; from the prophet even to the priest everyone deals falsely.

who says, ‘I will build myself a wide house and spacious rooms,’ and cuts out windows for himself; with a cedar ceiling, and painted with red.

“Son of man, what is this proverb that you have in the land of Israel, saying, ‘The days are prolonged, and every vision fails?’

“Son of man, behold, they of the house of Israel say, ‘The vision that he sees is for many days to come, and he prophesies of times that are far off.’

They will make a plunder of your riches, and make a prey of your merchandise. They will break down your walls, and destroy your pleasant houses. They will lay your stones, your timber, and your dust in the middle of the waters.

“Therefore the Lord Yahweh says to them: ‘Behold, I, even I, will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep.

The king spoke and said, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built for the royal dwelling place, by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?”

Hear this, you who desire to swallow up the needy, and cause the poor of the land to fail,

who also eat the flesh of my people, and peel their skin from off them, and break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as meat within the cauldron.

But seek first God’s Kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well.

For this people’s heart has grown callous. Their ears are dull of hearing. Their eyes they have closed. Lest they should see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, and would turn again, then I would heal them.’

“I know your works (behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one can shut), that you have a little power, and kept my word, and didn’t deny my name.

When Yahweh your God brings you into the land where you go to possess it, and casts out many nations before you—the Hittite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite—seven nations greater and mightier than you;

If there is found among you, within any of your gates which Yahweh your God gives you, a man or woman who does that which is evil in Yahweh your God’s sight in transgressing his covenant,

For when I have brought them into the land which I swore to their fathers, flowing with milk and honey, and they have eaten and filled themselves, and grown fat, then they will turn to other gods, and serve them, and despise me, and break my covenant.

Of the Rock who became your father, you are unmindful, and have forgotten God who gave you birth.

They close up their callous hearts. With their mouth they speak proudly.

I made myself great works. I built myself houses. I planted myself vineyards.

Therefore I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his works; for that is his portion: for who can bring him to see what will be after him?

who say, ‘The time is not near to build houses. This is the cauldron, and we are the meat.’

“ ‘The sentence is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones; to the intent that the living may know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever he will, and sets up over it the lowest of men.’

Therefore, because you trample on the poor, and take taxes from him of wheat: You have built houses of cut stone, but you will not dwell in them. You have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.

“Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies waste?

You have sown much, and bring in little. You eat, but you don’t have enough. You drink, but you aren’t filled with drink. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm, and he who earns wages earns wages to put them into a bag with holes in it.”

Likewise, even as it was in the days of Lot: they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built;