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Woes to the Wicked
Isaiah 5:8–30 gives a series of woes that expose greed, indulgence, pride, twisted morality, and injustice. The passage answers each sin with prophetic warnings and ends with a fearful picture of judgement.
Understanding the passage
The setting of this message
Within this passage, Isaiah speaks in ordered warnings. He begins with land-grabbing, moves to feasting without regard for Yahweh, then condemns mockery, moral reversal, self-importance, drunken corruption, and bribery. The final verses explain that these woes lead to desolation and an approaching judgement from far away.
Isaiah 5:8–30Main takeaway
Isaiah 5:8–30 teaches that rejecting Yahweh’s ways through greed, pride, and injustice leads to humbling judgement.
Explore the message
Open a card to explore the full explanation and its Bible references.
01Greed does not secure the landThe first woe condemns people who keep joining house to house and field to field until others are squeezed out.
Explanation
The first woe condemns people who keep joining house to house and field to field until others are squeezed out. Yahweh says the result will be the opposite of what they sought: many fine houses will be empty, and fertile land will produce very little. Greed ends in loss, not fullness.
02Feasting without regard for Yahweh leads to humblingThe next woe targets people devoted to drink and feasts while ignoring Yahweh’s work. Because they do not consider him, captivity, hunger, and thirst follow.
Explanation
The next woe targets people devoted to drink and feasts while ignoring Yahweh’s work. Because they do not consider him, captivity, hunger, and thirst follow. Sheol is pictured as opening wide to swallow the proud crowd in judgement. People are brought low, Yahweh is exalted in justice, and after the rich fall, lambs and strangers feed among the ruins.
03Sin is dragged along and truth is reversedAnother woe speaks of people pulling iniquity and wickedness as if harnessed to it. They mockingly call for the Holy One of Israel to act so they can see.
Explanation
Another woe speaks of people pulling iniquity and wickedness as if harnessed to it. They mockingly call for the Holy One of Israel to act so they can see. Then Isaiah condemns those who reverse moral order, calling evil good and good evil, darkness light, and bitter sweet.
04Self-trust and bribery corrupt judgementIsaiah next warns those who are wise in their own eyes. He also condemns those celebrated for drinking but who misuse their position by acquitting the guilty for a bribe and denying justice to the innocent.
Explanation
Isaiah next warns those who are wise in their own eyes. He also condemns those celebrated for drinking but who misuse their position by acquitting the guilty for a bribe and denying justice to the innocent. The passage joins arrogance, indulgence, and public injustice together under woe.
05Rejected word, unstoppable judgementThese judgements come because they rejected Yahweh’s law and despised his word. Fire, rottenness, trembling mountains, and bodies in the streets show the seriousness of his anger.
Explanation
These judgements come because they rejected Yahweh’s law and despised his word. Fire, rottenness, trembling mountains, and bodies in the streets show the seriousness of his anger. Nations from far away are summoned swiftly and powerfully. The passage closes with roaring, darkness, and distress across the land.
Questions to explore
Pause, look back at the verses and talk together.
01How does the first woe show that greedy expansion will not bring lasting success?
Compare the desire to take more land with the outcome of empty houses and disappointing harvests.
02What details show the seriousness of judgement after careless feasting?
Notice the movement from ignoring Yahweh’s work to captivity, Sheol opening wide, people being humbled, and ruins left behind.
03Which images in this passage describe people twisting what is morally true?
List the exact contrasts Isaiah uses for good and evil, light and darkness, and bitter and sweet.
Read the Bible passage
World English Bible ClassicScripture quotation · Public domain
Isaiah 5:8–30
8Woe to those who join house to house, who lay field to field, until there is no room, and you are made to dwell alone in the middle of the land!
9In my ears, Yahweh of Armies says: “Surely many houses will be desolate, even great and beautiful, unoccupied.
10For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield an ephah.”
11Woe to those who rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink, who stay late into the night, until wine inflames them!
12The harp, lyre, tambourine, and flute, with wine, are at their feasts; but they don’t respect the work of Yahweh, neither have they considered the operation of his hands.
13Therefore my people go into captivity for lack of knowledge. Their honorable men are famished, and their multitudes are parched with thirst.
14Therefore Sheol has enlarged its desire, and opened its mouth without measure; and their glory, their multitude, their pomp, and he who rejoices among them, descend into it.
15So man is brought low, mankind is humbled, and the eyes of the arrogant ones are humbled;
16but Yahweh of Armies is exalted in justice, and God the Holy One is sanctified in righteousness.
17Then the lambs will graze as in their pasture, and strangers will eat the ruins of the rich.
18Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, and wickedness as with cart rope,
19who say, “Let him make haste, let him hasten his work, that we may see it; let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come, that we may know it!”
20Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
21Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!
22Woe to those who are mighty to drink wine, and champions at mixing strong drink;
23who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice for the innocent!
24Therefore as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as the dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust, because they have rejected the law of Yahweh of Armies, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
25Therefore Yahweh’s anger burns against his people, and he has stretched out his hand against them and has struck them. The mountains tremble, and their dead bodies are as refuse in the middle of the streets. For all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is still stretched out.
26He will lift up a banner to the nations from far away, and he will whistle for them from the end of the earth. Behold, they will come speedily and swiftly.
27No one shall be weary nor stumble among them; no one shall slumber nor sleep, neither shall the belt of their waist be untied, nor the strap of their sandals be broken,
28whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent. Their horses’ hoofs will be like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind.
29Their roaring will be like a lioness. They will roar like young lions. Yes, they shall roar, and seize their prey and carry it off, and there will be no one to deliver.
30They will roar against them in that day like the roaring of the sea. If one looks to the land, behold, darkness and distress. The light is darkened in its clouds.