Monday. April 29

I will sing for the one I love

    a song about his vineyard:

My loved one had a vineyard

    on a fertile hillside.

2 

He dug it up and cleared it of stones

    and planted it with the choicest vines.

He built a watchtower in it

    and cut out a winepress as well.

Then he looked for a crop of good grapes,

    but it yielded only bad fruit.

3 

“Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah,

    judge between me and my vineyard.

4 

What more could have been done for my vineyard

    than I have done for it?

When I looked for good grapes,

    why did it yield only bad?

5 

Now I will tell you

    what I am going to do to my vineyard:

I will take away its hedge,

    and it will be destroyed;

I will break down its wall,

    and it will be trampled.

6 

I will make it a wasteland,

    neither pruned nor cultivated,

    and briers and thorns will grow there.

I will command the clouds

    not to rain on it.”

7 

The vineyard of the Lord Almighty

    is the nation of Israel,

and the people of Judah

    are the vines he delighted in.

And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed;

    for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.