Mourn ¹  over the land of my people, which is overgrown with thorns and briers, and over all the once-happy houses ²  in the city filled with revelry. ³ 

you will be blessed, you who plant seed by all the banks of the streams, ¹  you who let your ox and donkey graze. ² 

until I come and take you to a land just like your own – a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.

Our holy temple, our pride and joy, ¹  the place where our ancestors praised you, has been burned with fire; all our prized possessions have been destroyed. ² 

I brought you ¹  into a fertile land so you could enjoy ²  its fruits and its rich bounty. But when you entered my land, you defiled it; ³  you made the land I call my own ⁴  loathsome to me.

I looked and saw that the fruitful land had become a desert and that all of the cities had been laid in ruins. The Lord had brought this all about because of his blazing anger. ¹ 

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.

For the Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹  says, “Houses, fields, and vineyards will again be bought in this land.”’ ² 

But he ¹  left behind in the land of Judah some of the poor people who owned nothing. He gave them fields and vineyards at that time.

Consider! It is planted, but will it prosper? Will it not wither completely when the east wind blows on it? Will it not wither in the soil where it sprouted?’”

Is there idolatry ¹  in Gilead? ²  Certainly its inhabitants ³  will come to nothing! ⁴  Do they sacrifice bulls in Gilgal? Surely their altars will be like stones heaped up on a plowed field!

People will reside again ¹  in his shade; they will plant and harvest grain in abundance. ²  They will blossom like a vine, and his fame will be like the wine from Lebanon.

Be distressed, ¹  farmers; wail, vinedressers, over the wheat and the barley. For the harvest of the field has perished.

“I will turn Samaria ¹  into a heap of ruins in an open field – vineyards will be planted there! ²  I will tumble ³  the rubble of her stone walls ⁴  down into the valley, and tear down her fortifications to their foundations. ⁵ 

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 

Their wealth will be stolen and their houses ruined! They will not live in the houses they have built, nor will they drink the wine from the vineyards they have planted.

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.

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner ¹  who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.

He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and I will give you whatever is right.’

They said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go and work in the vineyard too.’