They no longer sing and drink wine; ¹  the beer tastes bitter to those who drink it.

Those who are champions ¹  at drinking wine are as good as dead, ²  who display great courage when mixing strong drinks.

But look, there is outright celebration! ¹  You say, “Kill the ox and slaughter the sheep, eat meat and drink wine. Eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!” ² 

Those who get up early to drink beer are as good as dead, ¹  those who keep drinking long after dark until they are intoxicated with wine. ² 

Arrange the table, lay out ¹  the carpet, eat and drink! ²  Get up, you officers, smear oil on the shields! ³ 

But those who harvest the grain ¹  will eat it, and will praise the Lord. Those who pick the grapes will drink the wine ²  in the courts of my holy sanctuary.”

So this is what the sovereign Lord says: “Look, my servants will eat, but you will be hungry! Look, my servants will drink, but you will be thirsty! Look, my servants will rejoice, but you will be humiliated!

This is what your sovereign master, ¹  the Lord your God, says: “Look, I have removed from your hand the cup of intoxicating wine, ²  the goblet full of my anger. ³  You will no longer have to drink it.

The Lord swears an oath by his right hand, by his strong arm: ¹  “I will never again give your grain to your enemies as food, and foreigners will not drink your wine, which you worked hard to produce.

For a fool speaks disgraceful things; ¹  his mind plans out sinful deeds. ²  He commits godless deeds ³  and says misleading things about the Lord; he gives the hungry nothing to satisfy their appetite ⁴  and gives the thirsty nothing to drink. ⁵ 

A blacksmith works with his tool ¹  and forges metal over the coals. He forms it ²  with hammers; he makes it with his strong arm. He gets hungry and loses his energy; ³  he drinks no water and gets tired.

The sovereign master ¹  will give you distress to eat and suffering to drink; ²  but your teachers will no longer be hidden; your eyes will see them. ³ 

Therefore my ¹  people will be deported ²  because of their lack of understanding. Their ³  leaders will have nothing to eat, ⁴  their ⁵  masses will have nothing to drink. ⁶ 

You will drink the milk of nations; you will nurse at the breasts of kings. ¹  Then you will recognize that I, the Lord, am your deliverer, your protector, ²  the powerful ruler of Jacob. ³ 

It will be like a hungry man dreaming that he is eating, only to awaken and find that his stomach is empty. ¹  It will be like a thirsty man dreaming that he is drinking, only to awaken and find that he is still weak and his thirst unquenched. ²  So it will be for the horde from all the nations that fight against Mount Zion.

But the chief adviser said, “My master did not send me to speak these words only to your master and to you. ¹  His message is also for the men who sit on the wall, for they will eat their own excrement and drink their own urine along with you!” ² 

Don’t listen to Hezekiah!’ For this is what the king of Assyria says, ‘Send me a token of your submission and surrender to me. ¹  Then each of you may eat from his own vine and fig tree and drink water from his own cistern,

Even these men ¹  stagger because of wine, they stumble around because of beer – priests and prophets stagger because of beer, they are confused ²  because of wine, they stumble around because of beer; they stagger while seeing prophetic visions, ³  they totter while making legal decisions. ⁴ 

For ¹  you will nurse from her satisfying breasts and be nourished; ²  you will feed with joy from her milk-filled breasts. ³ 

Each one says, ¹  ‘Come on, I’ll get some wine! Let’s guzzle some beer! Tomorrow will be just like today! We’ll have everything we want!’ ²