Indeed ¹  Israel ²  is the vineyard of the Lord who commands armies, the people ³  of Judah are the cultivated place in which he took delight. He waited for justice, but look what he got – disobedience! ⁴  He waited for fairness, but look what he got – cries for help! ⁵ 

The Lord’s messenger ¹  went out and killed 185,000 troops ²  in the Assyrian camp. When they ³  got up early the next morning, there were all the corpses! ⁴ 

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.”

For this reason what they have made and stored up, they carry over the Stream of the Poplars.

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

This is the prayer of King Hezekiah of Judah when he was sick and then recovered from his illness:

You saw the many breaks in the walls of the city of David; ¹  you stored up water in the lower pool.

They will be imprisoned in a pit, ¹  locked up in a prison, and after staying there for a long time, ²  they will be punished. ³ 

The chief adviser then stood there and called out loudly in the Judahite dialect, ¹  “Listen to the message of the great king, the king of Assyria.

When the chief adviser heard the king of Assyria had departed from Lachish, he left and went to Libnah, where the king was campaigning. ¹ 

They will disappoint you, ¹  those you have so faithfully dealt with since your youth. ²  Each strays off in his own direction, ³  leaving no one to rescue you.”

Because of the long distance you must travel, you get tired, ¹  but you do not say, ‘I give up.’ ²  You get renewed energy, ³  so you don’t collapse. ⁴ 

At that time ¹  the sovereign master will use a razor hired from the banks of the Euphrates River, ²  the king of Assyria, to shave the head and the pubic hair; ³  it will also shave off the beard.

Sheol ¹  below is stirred up about you, ready to meet you when you arrive. It rouses ²  the spirits of the dead for you, all the former leaders of the earth; ³  it makes all the former kings of the nations rise from their thrones. ⁴ 

At that time ¹  the Lord will shake the tree, ²  from the Euphrates River ³  to the Stream of Egypt. Then you will be gathered up one by one, O Israelites. ⁴ 

Who has measured out the waters ¹  in the hollow of his hand, or carefully ²  measured the sky, ³  or carefully weighed ⁴  the soil of the earth, or weighed the mountains in a balance, or the hills on scales? ⁵ 

You did not buy me aromatic reeds; ¹  you did not present to me ²  the fat of your sacrifices. Yet you burdened me with your sins; you made me weary with your evil deeds. ³