Day 303 The Bible in a Year (Orthodox canon)

Isaiah 5

1 Now I will sing to [my] beloved a song of my beloved concerning my vineyard. [My] beloved had a vineyard on a high hill in a fertile place. 2 And I made a hedge round it, and dug a trench, and planted a choice vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and dug a place for the wine-vat in it: and I waited [for it] to bring forth grapes, and it brought forth thorns. 3 And now, ye dwellers in Jerusalem, and [every] man of Juda, judge between me and my vineyard. 4 What shall I do any more to my vineyard, that I have not done to it? Whereas I expected [it] to bring forth grapes, but it has brought forth thorns. 5 And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it shall be for a spoil; and I will pull down its walls, and it shall be [left] to be trodden down. 6 And I will forsake my vineyard; and it shall not be pruned, nor dug, and thorns shall come up upon it as on barren land; and I will command the clouds to rain no rain upon it. 7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Juda [his] beloved plant: I expected [it] to bring forth judgment, and it brought forth iniquity; and not righteousness, but a cry. 8 Woe [to them] that join house to house, and add field to field, that they may take away something of their neighbour's: will ye dwell alone upon the land? 9 For these things have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts: for though many houses should be built, many and fair houses shall be desolate, and there shall be no inhabitants in them. 10 For where ten yoke of oxen plough [the land] shall yield one jar-full, and he that sows six homers shall produce three measures. 11 Woe [to them] that rise up in the morning, and follow strong drink; who wait [at it till] the evening: for the wine shall inflame them. 12 For they drink wine with harp, and psaltery, and drums, and pipes: but they regard not the works of the Lord, and consider not the works of his hands. 13 Therefore my people have been taken captive, because they know not the Lord: and there has been a multitude of dead [bodies], because of hunger and of thirst for water. 14 Therefore hell has enlarged its desire and opened its mouth without ceasing: and her glorious and great, and her rich and her pestilent men shall go down [into it]. 15 And the mean man shall be brought low, and the great man shall be disgraced, and the lofty eyes shall be brought low. 16 But the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and the holy God shall be glorified in righteousness. 17 And they that were spoiled shall be fed as bulls, and lambs shall feed on the waste places of them that are taken away. 18 Woe [to them] that draw sins to them as with a long rope, and iniquities as with a thong of the heifer's yoke: 19 who say, Let him speedily hasten what he will do, that we may see [it]: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel come, that we may know [it]. 20 Woe [to them] that call evil good, and good evil; who make darkness light, and light darkness; who make bitter sweet, and sweet bitter. 21 Woe [to them] that are wise in their own conceit, and knowing in their own sight. 22 Woe to the strong [ones] of you that drink wine, and the mighty [ones] that mingle strong drink: 23 who justify the ungodly for rewards, and take away the righteousness of the righteous. 24 Therefore as stubble shall be burnt by a coal of fire, and shall be consumed by a violent flame, their root shall be as chaff, and their flower shall go up as dust: for they rejected the law of the Lord of hosts, and insulted the word of the Holy One of Israel. 25 Therefore the Lord of hosts was greatly angered against his people, and he reached forth his hand upon them, and smote them: and the mountains were troubled, and their carcases were as dung in the midst of the way: yet for all this his anger has not been turned away, but his hand is yet raised. 26 Therefore shall he lift up a signal to the nations that are afar, and shall hiss for them from the end of the earth; and, behold, they are coming very quickly. 27 They shall not hunger nor be weary, neither shall they slumber nor sleep; neither shall they loose their girdles from their loins, neither shall their shoe-latchets be broken. 28 Whose arrows are sharp, and their bows bent; their horses' hoofs are counted as solid rock: their chariot-wheels are as a storm. 29 They rage as lions, and draw nigh as a lion's whelps: and he shall seize, and roar as a wild beast, and he shall cast [them] forth, and there shall be none to deliver them. 30 And he shall roar on account of them in that day, as the sound of the swelling sea; and they shall look to the land, and, behold, [there shall be] thick darkness in their perplexity.

Isaiah 6

1 And it came to pass in the year in which king Ozias died, [that] I saw the Lord sitting on a high and exalted throne, and the house was full of his glory. 2 And seraphs stood round about him: each one had six wings: and with two they covered [their] face, and with two they covered [their] feet, and with two they flew. 3 And one cried to the other, and they said, Holy, holy, holy, [is the] Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. 4 And the lintel shook at the voice they uttered, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 And I said, Woe is me, for I am pricked to the heart; for being a man, and having unclean lips, I dwell in the midst of a people having unclean lips; and I have seen with mine eyes the King, the Lord of hosts. 6 And there was sent to me one of the seraphs, and he had in his hand a coal, which he had taken off the altar with the tongs: 7 and he touched my mouth, and said, Behold, this has touched thy lips, and will take away thine iniquities, and will purge off thy sins. 8 And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go to this people? And I said, Behold, I am [here], send me. And he said, Go, and say to this people, 9 Ye shall hear indeed, but ye shall not understand; and ye shall see indeed, but ye shall not perceive. 10 For the heart of this people has become gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them. 11 And I said, How long, O Lord? And he said, Until the cities be deserted by reason of their not being inhabited, and the houses by reason of there being no men, and the land shall be left desolate. 12 And after this God shall remove the men far off, and they that are left upon the land shall be multiplied. 13 And yet there shall be a tenth upon it, and again it shall be for a spoil, as a turpentine tree, and as an acorn when it falls out of its husk.

Isaiah 7

1 And it came to pass in the days of Achaz [the son] of Joatham, the son of Ozias, king of Juda, there came up Rasin king of Aram, and Phakee son of Romelias, king of Israel, against Jerusalem to war against it, but they could not take it. 2 And a message was brought to the house of David, saying, Aram has conspired with Ephraim. And his soul was amazed, and the soul of his people, as in a wood a tree is moved by the wind. 3 And the Lord said to Esaias, Go forth to meet Achaz, thou, and thy son Jasub who is left, to the pool of the upper way of the fuller's field. 4 And thou shalt say to him, Take care to be quiet, and fear not, neither let thy soul be disheartened because of these two smoking firebrands: for when my fierce anger is over, I will heal again. 5 And [as for] the son of Aram, and the son of Romelias, forasmuch as they have devised an evil counsel, [saying], 6 We will go up against Judea, and having conferred with them we will turn them away to our side, and we will make the son of Tabeel king of it; 7 thus saith the Lord of hosts, This counsel shall not abide, nor come to pass. 8 But the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus, Rasim; and yet within sixty and five years the kingdom of Ephraim shall cease from [being] a people. 9 And the head of Ephraim is Somoron, and the head of Somoron the son of Romelias: but if ye believe not, neither will ye at all understand. 10 And the Lord again spoke to Achaz, saying, 11 Ask for thyself a sign of the Lord thy God, in the depth or in the height. 12 And Achaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord. 13 And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; is it a little thing for you to contend with men? and how do ye contend against the Lord? 14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Emmanuel. 15 Butter and honey shall he eat, before he knows either to prefer evil, [or] choose the good. 16 For before the child shall know good or evil, he refuses evil, to choose the good; and the land shall be forsaken which thou art afraid of because of the two kings. 17 But God shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon the house of thy father, days which have never come, from the day that Ephraim took away from Juda the king of the Assyrians. 18 And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall hiss for the flies, which [insect] shall rule over a part of the river of Egypt, and for the bee which is in the land of the Assyrians. 19 And they all shall enter into the clefts of the land, and into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves, and into every ravine. 20 In that day the Lord shall shave with the hired razor of the king of Assyria beyond the river the head, and the hairs of the feet, and will remove the beard. 21 And it shall come to pass in that day, [that] a man shall rear a heifer, and two sheep. 22 And it shall come to pass from their drinking an abundance of milk, [that] every one that is left on the land shall eat butter and honey. 23 And it shall come to pass in that day, [for] every place where there shall be a thousand vines at a thousand shekels, they shall become barren land and thorns. 24 [Men] shall enter thither with arrow and bow; for all the land shall be [barren] ground and thorns. 25 And every mountain shall be certainly ploughed: there shall no fear come thither: for there shall be from [among] the [barren] ground and thorns that whereon cattle shall feed and oxen shall tread.