Isaiah 5; Isaiah 6; Ephesians 1

1 Now I will sing for my friend a song about his vineyard. My friend had a vineyard on a hill with very rich soil.

2 He dug and cleared the field of stones and planted the best grapevines there. He built a tower in the middle of it and cut out a winepress as well. He hoped good grapes would grow there, but only bad ones grew.

3 My friend says, "You people living in Jerusalem, and you people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard.

4 What more could I have done for my vineyard than I have already done? Although I expected good grapes to grow, why were there only bad ones?

5 Now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will remove the hedge, and it will be burned. I will break down the stone wall, and it will be walked on.

6 I will ruin my field. It will not be trimmed or hoed, and weeds and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it."

7 The vineyard belonging to the Lord All-Powerful is the nation of Israel; the garden that he loves is the people of Judah. He looked for justice, but there was only killing. He hoped for right living, but there were only cries of pain.

8 How terrible it will be for you who add more houses to your houses and more fields to your fields until there is no room left for other people. Then you are left alone in the land.

9 The Lord All-Powerful said this to me: "The fine houses will be destroyed; the large and beautiful houses will be left empty.

10 At that time a ten-acre vineyard will make only six gallons of wine, and ten bushels of seed will grow only half a bushel of grain."

11 How terrible it will be for people who rise early in the morning to look for strong drink, who stay awake late at night, becoming drunk with wine.

12 At their parties they have lyres, harps, tambourines, flutes, and wine. or notice the work of his hands.

13 So my people will be captured and taken away, because they don't really know me. All the great people will die of hunger, and the common people will die of thirst.

14 So the place of the dead wants more and more people, and it opens wide its mouth. Jerusalem's important people and common people will go down into it, with their happy and noisy ones.

15 So the common people and the great people will be brought down; those who are proud will be humbled.

16 The Lord All-Powerful will receive glory by judging fairly; the holy God will show himself holy by doing what is right.

17 Then the sheep will go anywhere they want, and lambs will feed on the land that rich people once owned.

18 How terrible it will be for those people! They pull their guilt and sins behind them as people pull wagons with ropes.

19 They say, "Let God hurry; let him do his work soon so we may see it. so that we will know what it is."

20 How terrible it will be for people who call good things bad and bad things good, who think darkness is light and light is darkness, who think sour is sweet and sweet is sour.

21 How terrible it will be for people who think they are wise and believe they are clever.

22 How terrible it will be for people who are famous for drinking wine and are champions at mixing drinks.

23 They take money to set the guilty free and don't allow good people to be judged fairly.

24 They will be destroyed just as fire burns straw or dry grass. They will be destroyed like a plant whose roots rot and whose flower dies and blows away like dust. and have hated the message from the Holy God of Israel.

25 So the Lord has become very angry with his people, and he has raised his hand to punish them. Even the mountains are frightened. Dead bodies lie in the streets like garbage. But the Lord is still angry; his hand is still raised to strike down the people.

26 He raises a banner for the nations far away. He whistles to call those people from the ends of the earth.

27 Not one of them becomes tired or falls down. Not one of them gets sleepy and falls asleep. Their weapons are close at hand, and their sandal straps are not broken.

28 Their arrows are sharp, and all of their bows are ready to shoot. The horses' hoofs are hard as rocks, and their chariot wheels move like a whirlwind.

29 Their shout is like the roar of a lion; it is loud like a young lion. They growl as they grab their captives. There is no one to stop them from taking their captives away.

30 On that day they will roar like the waves of the sea. And when people look at the land, they will see only darkness and pain; all light will become dark in this thick cloud.

1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a very high throne. His long robe filled the Temple.

2 Heavenly creatures of fire stood above him. Each creature had six wings: It used two wings to cover its face, two wings to cover its feet, and two wings for flying.

3 Each creature was calling to the others: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord All-Powerful. His glory fills the whole earth."

4 Their calling caused the frame around the door to shake, as the Temple filled with smoke.

5 I said, "Oh, no! I will be destroyed. I am not pure, and I live among people who are not pure, but I have seen the King, the Lord All-Powerful."

6 One of the heavenly creatures used a pair of tongs to take a hot coal from the altar. Then he flew to me with the hot coal in his hand.

7 The creature touched my mouth with the hot coal and said, "Look, your guilt is taken away, because this hot coal has touched your lips. Your sin is taken away."

8 Then I heard the Lord's voice, saying, "Whom can I send? Who will go for us?" So I said, "Here I am. Send me!"

9 Then the Lord said, "Go and tell this to the people: 'You will listen and listen, but you will not understand. You will look and look, but you will not learn.'

10 Make the minds of these people dumb. Shut their ears. Cover their eyes. Otherwise, they might really understand what they see with their eyes and hear with their ears. They might really understand in their minds and come back to me and be healed."

11 Then I asked, "Lord, how long should I do this?" He answered, "Until the cities are destroyed and the people are gone, until there are no people left in the houses, until the land is destroyed and left empty.

12 The Lord will send the people far away, and the land will be left empty.

13 One-tenth of the people will be left in the land, but it will be destroyed again. These people will be like an oak tree whose stump is left when the tree is chopped down. The people who remain will be like a stump that will sprout again."

1 From Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus. I am an apostle because that is what God wanted. To God's holy people living in Ephesus, believers in Christ Jesus:

2 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Christ, God has given us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly world.

4 That is, in Christ, he chose us before the world was made so that we would be his holy people -- people without blame before him.

5 Because of his love, God had already decided to make us his own children through Jesus Christ. That was what he wanted and what pleased him,

6 and it brings praise to God because of his wonderful grace. God gave that grace to us freely, in Christ, the One he loves.

7 In Christ we are set free by the blood of his death, and so we have forgiveness of sins. How rich is God's grace,

8 which he has given to us so fully and freely. God, with full wisdom and understanding,

9 let us know his secret purpose. This was what God wanted, and he planned to do it through Christ.

10 His goal was to carry out his plan, when the right time came, that all things in heaven and on earth would be joined together in Christ as the head.

11 In Christ we were chosen to be God's people, because from the very beginning God had decided this in keeping with his plan. And he is the One who makes everything agree with what he decides and wants.

12 We are the first people who hoped in Christ, and we were chosen so that we would bring praise to God's glory.

13 So it is with you. When you heard the true teaching -- the Good News about your salvation -- you believed in Christ. And in Christ, God put his special mark of ownership on you by giving you the Holy Spirit that he had promised.

14 That Holy Spirit is the guarantee that we will receive what God promised for his people until God gives full freedom to those who are his -- to bring praise to God's glory.

15 That is why since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God's people,

16 I have not stopped giving thanks to God for you. I always remember you in my prayers,

17 asking the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, to give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you will know him better.

18 I pray also that you will have greater understanding in your heart so you will know the hope to which he has called us and that you will know how rich and glorious are the blessings God has promised his holy people.

19 And you will know that God's power is very great for us who believe. That power is the same as the great strength

20 God used to raise Christ from the dead and put him at his right side in the heavenly world.

21 God has put Christ over all rulers, authorities, powers, and kings, not only in this world but also in the next.

22 God put everything under his power and made him the head over everything for the church,

23 which is Christ's body. The church is filled with Christ, and Christ fills everything in every way.