Isaiah 7:23

Therefore the showers have been withheld and there has been no latter rain; yet you have had a prostitute’s forehead and you refused to be ashamed.

The high places also of Aven, the sin of Israel, will be destroyed. The thorn and the thistle will come up on their altars. They will tell the mountains, “Cover us!” and the hills, “Fall on us!”

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

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.

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.

I will lay it a wasteland. It won’t be pruned or hoed, but it will grow briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it.”

and a fruitful land into a salt waste, for the wickedness of those who dwell in it.

Now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away its hedge, and it will be eaten up. I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled down.

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.

You that are full of shouting, a tumultuous city, a joyous town; your slain are not slain with the sword, neither are they dead in battle.

Wrath is not in me, but if I should find briers and thorns, I would do battle! I would march on them and I would burn them together.

Now therefore know certainly that you will die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence in the place where you desire to go to live there.”

Then you shall say, ‘Thus will Babylon sink, and will not rise again because of the evil that I will bring on her; and they will be weary.’ ” Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.

I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, about which she has said, ‘These are my wages that my lovers have given me; and I will make them a forest,’ and the animals of the field shall eat them.

He has laid my vine waste, and stripped my fig tree. He has stripped its bark, and thrown it away. Its branches are made white.

In all vineyards there will be wailing; for I will pass through the middle of you,” says Yahweh.

All her idols will be beaten to pieces, and all her temple gifts will be burned with fire, and all her images I will destroy; for of the hire of a prostitute has she gathered them, and to the hire of a prostitute shall they return.”

He set another parable before them, saying, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field,

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the farmer.

Examine your own selves, whether you are in the faith. Test your own selves. Or don’t you know about your own selves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified.

Yahweh rooted them out of their land in anger, in wrath, and in great indignation, and thrust them into another land, as it is today.”

But the man who touches them must be armed with iron and the staff of a spear. They will be utterly burned with fire in their place.”

He binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not burst under them.

He causes the grass to grow for the livestock, and plants for man to cultivate, that he may produce food out of the earth:

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

For days beyond a year you will be troubled, you careless women; for the vintage will fail. The harvest won’t come.

Thorns and briers will come up on my people’s land; yes, on all the houses of joy in the joyous city.

Thorns will come up in its palaces, nettles and thistles in its fortresses; and it will be a habitation of jackals, a court for ostriches.

For as the rain comes down and the snow from the sky, and doesn’t return there, but waters the earth, and makes it grow and bud, and gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater;

This whole land will be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

Thus Yahweh could no longer bear it, because of the evil of your doings, and because of the abominations which you have committed. Therefore your land has become a desolation, and an astonishment, and a curse, without inhabitant, as it is today.

For their mother has played the prostitute. She who conceived them has done shamefully; for she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’

They return, but not to the Most High. They are like a faulty bow. Their princes will fall by the sword for the rage of their tongue. This will be their derision in the land of Egypt.

As for the sacrifices of my offerings, they sacrifice meat and eat it; But Yahweh doesn’t accept them. Now he will remember their iniquity, and punish their sins. They will return to Egypt.

They won’t dwell in Yahweh’s land; but Ephraim will return to Egypt, and they will eat unclean food in Assyria.

For, behold, they have gone away from destruction. Egypt will gather them up. Memphis will bury them. Nettles will possess their pleasant things of silver. Thorns will be in their tents.

Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap according to kindness. Break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek Yahweh, until he comes and rains righteousness on you.

I will meet them like a bear that is bereaved of her cubs, and will tear the covering of their heart. There I will devour them like a lioness. The wild animal will tear them.

“I also have withheld the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest; and I caused it to rain on one city, and caused it not to rain on another city. One place was rained on, and the piece where it didn’t rain withered.

Behold, the days come,” says the Lord Yahweh, “that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing Yahweh’s words.

Through all that time, when one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten. When one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty, there were only twenty.

“For, behold, the day comes, it burns as a furnace; and all the proud, and all who work wickedness, will be stubble; and the day that comes will burn them up,” says Yahweh of Armies, “that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

Every tree that doesn’t grow good fruit is cut down, and thrown into the fire.

But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first, and said, ‘Son, go work today in my vineyard.’

“For it is like a man, going into another country, who called his own servants, and entrusted his goods to them.

Then he will say also to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels;

He taught them many things in parables, and told them in his teaching,

“It is like a man, traveling to another country, having left his house, and given authority to his servants, and to each one his work, and also commanded the doorkeeper to keep watch.

If a man doesn’t remain in me, he is thrown out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

What fruit then did you have at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.

For you know that even when he afterward desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for a change of mind though he sought it diligently with tears.

It will yield thorns and thistles to you; and you will eat the herb of the field.

a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive trees and honey;

that all of its land is sulfur, salt, and burning, that it is not sown, doesn’t produce, nor does any grass grow in it, like the overthrow of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which Yahweh overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath.

Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand cors of wheat for food to his household, and twenty cors of pure oil. Solomon gave this to Hiram year by year.

“When the sky is shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against you; if they pray toward this place, and confess your name, and turn from their sin, when you afflict them;

then let my shoulder fall from the shoulder blade, and my arm be broken from the bone.

let briers grow instead of wheat, and stinkweed instead of barley.” The words of Job are ended.

For he draws up the drops of water, which distill in rain from his vapor,

Charge them with crime upon crime. Don’t let them come into your righteousness.

He will come down like rain on the mown grass, as showers that water the earth.

This ends the prayers by David, the son of Jesse.

Yet he commanded the skies above, and opened the doors of heaven.

But he would have also fed them with the finest of the wheat. I will satisfy you with honey out of the rock.”

You turn man to destruction, saying, “Return, you children of men.”

who covers the sky with clouds, who prepares rain for the earth, who makes grass grow on the mountains.

He makes peace in your borders. He fills you with the finest of the wheat.

Behold, it was all grown over with thorns. Its surface was covered with nettles, and its stone wall was broken down.

For you shall be as an oak whose leaf fades, and as a garden that has no water.

He will give the rain for your seed, with which you will sow the ground; and bread of the increase of the ground will be rich and plentiful. In that day, your livestock will feed in large pastures.

For Yahweh says to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem, “Break up your fallow ground, and don’t sow among thorns.

I saw, and behold, the fruitful field was a wilderness, and all its cities were broken down at the presence of Yahweh, before his fierce anger.

They have sown wheat, and have reaped thorns. They have exhausted themselves, and profit nothing. You will be ashamed of your fruits, because of Yahweh’s fierce anger.”

Are there any among the vanities of the nations that can cause rain? Or can the sky give showers? Aren’t you he, Yahweh our God? Therefore we will wait for you; for you have made all these things.

“You shall tell him, Yahweh says: ‘Behold, that which I have built, I will break down, and that which I have planted I will pluck up; and this in the whole land.

Gladness and joy is taken away from the fruitful field and from the land of Moab. I have caused wine to cease from the wine presses. No one will tread with shouting. The shouting will be no shouting.

Thus you were decked with gold and silver. Your clothing was of fine linen, silk, and embroidered work. You ate fine flour, honey, and oil. You were exceedingly beautiful, and you prospered to royal estate.

“ ‘ “Judah and the land of Israel were your traders. They traded wheat of Minnith, confections, honey, oil, and balm for your merchandise.

For the children of Israel shall live many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice, and without sacred stone, and without ephod or idols.

But they will sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and no one will make them afraid: For the mouth of Yahweh of Armies has spoken.

Ask of Yahweh rain in the spring time, Yahweh who makes storm clouds, and he gives rain showers to everyone for the plants in the field.

It will be, that whoever of all the families of the earth doesn’t go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, Yahweh of Armies, on them there will be no rain.

Others fell among thorns. The thorns grew up and choked them.

“Hear another parable. There was a man who was a master of a household, who planted a vineyard, set a hedge about it, dug a wine press in it, built a tower, leased it out to farmers, and went into another country.

He began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a pit for the wine press, built a tower, rented it out to a farmer, and went into another country.

“There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are these among so many?”

So they gathered them up, and filled twelve baskets with broken pieces from the five barley loaves, which were left over by those who had eaten.

but if it bears thorns and thistles, it is rejected and near being cursed, whose end is to be burned.