I, the Lord, protect it; ¹  I water it regularly. ²  I guard it night and day, so no one can harm it. ³ 

Your plunder ¹  disappears as if locusts were eating it; ²  they swarm over it like locusts! ³ 

Many foreign rulers ¹  will ruin the land where I planted my people. ²  They will trample all over my chosen land. ³  They will turn my beautiful land into a desolate wasteland.

If grape pickers came to pick your grapes, would they not leave a few grapes behind? ¹  If robbers came at night, would they not pillage only what they needed? ² 

“Son of man, of all the woody branches among the trees of the forest, what happens to the wood of the vine? ¹ 

For the Lord will restore ¹  the majesty ²  of Jacob, as well as ³  the majesty of Israel, though ⁴  their enemies have plundered them ⁵  and have destroyed their fields. ⁶ 

You must not pick your vineyard bare, ¹  and you must not gather up the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You must leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God.

but in the seventh year the land must have a Sabbath of complete rest ¹  – a Sabbath to the Lord. You must not sow your field or ²  prune your vineyard.

They went out to the field, harvested their grapes, ¹  squeezed out the juice, ²  and celebrated. They came to the temple ³  of their god and ate, drank, and cursed Abimelech.

This is what the Lord who rules over all ¹  said to me: ²  “Those who remain in Israel will be like the grapes thoroughly gleaned ³  from a vine. So go over them again, as though you were a grape harvester passing your hand over the branches one last time.” ⁴ 

I will take away their harvests, ¹  says the Lord. There will be no grapes on their vines. There will be no figs on their fig trees. Even the leaves on their trees will wither. The crops that I gave them will be taken away.’” ² 

Yet my people have forgotten me and offered sacrifices to worthless idols! This makes them stumble along in the way they live and leave the old reliable path of their fathers. ¹  They have left them to walk in bypaths, in roads that are not smooth and level. ² 

Do not fear, wild animals! ¹  For the pastures of the wilderness are again green with grass. Indeed, the trees bear their fruit; the fig tree and the vine yield to their fullest. ² 

Each will sit under his own grapevine or under his own fig tree without any fear. ¹  The Lord who commands armies has decreed it. ² 

Then I will stop the plague ¹  from ruining your crops, ²  and the vine will not lose its fruit before harvest,” says the Lord who rules over all.

When harvest time came, he sent a slave ¹  to the tenants so that they would give ²  him his portion of the crop. ³  However, the tenants beat his slave ⁴  and sent him away empty-handed.

Who ever serves in the army at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its fruit? Who tends a flock and does not consume its milk?

So ¹  the angel swung his sickle over the earth and gathered the grapes from the vineyard ²  of the earth and tossed them into the great ³  winepress of the wrath of God.

¹ This will be your confirmation that I have spoken the truth: ²  This year you will eat what grows wild, ³  and next year ⁴  what grows on its own from that. But in the third year you will plant seed and harvest crops; you will plant vines and consume their produce. ⁵ 

¹ “This will be your reminder that I have spoken the truth: ²  This year you will eat what grows wild, ³  and next year ⁴  what grows on its own. But the year after that ⁵  you will plant seed and harvest crops; you will plant vines and consume their produce. ⁶