Jeremiah 12:10

¹⁸Your holy people possessed it but a little while. Our adversaries have trodden down your sanctuary.

¹Let me sing for my well beloved a song of my beloved about his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. ²He dug it up, gathered out its stones, planted it with the choicest vine, built a tower in the middle of it, and also cut out a wine press in it. He looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. ³“Now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, please judge between me and my vineyard. ⁴What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Why, when I looked for it to yield grapes, did it yield wild grapes? ⁵Now 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. ⁶I 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.” ⁷For the vineyard of the LORD of Armies is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant. He looked for justice, but behold, oppression, for righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress.

¹“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” says the LORD.

¹⁹“But I said, ‘How I desire to put you among the children, and give you a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the armies of the nations!’ and I said, ‘You shall call me “My Father”, and shall not turn away from following me.’

⁸You brought a vine out of Egypt. You drove out the nations, and planted it. ⁹You cleared the ground for it. It took deep root, and filled the land. ¹⁰The mountains were covered with its shadow. Its boughs were like God’s cedars. ¹¹It sent out its branches to the sea, its shoots to the River. ¹²Why have you broken down its walls, so that all those who pass by the way pluck it? ¹³The boar out of the wood ravages it. The wild animals of the field feed on it. ¹⁴Turn again, we beg you, God of Armies. Look down from heaven, and see, and visit this vine, ¹⁵the stock which your right hand planted, the branch that you made strong for yourself. ¹⁶It’s burned with fire. It’s cut down. They perish at your rebuke.

³Shepherds with their flocks will come to her. They will pitch their tents against her all around. They will feed everyone in his place.”

⁹He began to tell the people this parable: “A ^[+] man planted a vineyard and rented it out to some farmers, and went into another country for a long time. ¹⁰At the proper season, he sent a servant to the farmers to collect his share of the fruit of the vineyard. But the farmers beat him and sent him away empty. ¹¹He sent yet another servant, and they also beat him and treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty. ¹²He sent yet a third, and they also wounded him and threw him out. ¹³The lord of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my beloved son. It may be that seeing him, they will respect him.’

¹⁴“But when the farmers saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him, that the inheritance may be ours.’ ¹⁵Then they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What therefore will the lord of the vineyard do to them? ¹⁶He will come and destroy these farmers, and will give the vineyard to others.” When they heard that, they said, “May that never be!”

¹⁴Settle it therefore in your hearts not to meditate beforehand how to answer,

²⁸Therefore I will profane the princes of the sanctuary; and I will make Jacob a curse, and Israel an insult.”

⁹behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,” says the LORD, “and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations around. I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations.