The prophet Isaiah has been delivering messages of judgment against Judah and Jerusalem for their rebellion, idolatry, and social injustices. In the preceding chapters, he condemned the people's empty religious rituals while they oppressed the poor and pursued wickedness. He warned that God would use foreign nations as instruments of judgment against His unfaithful people. Isaiah proclaimed that despite their covenant relationship with God, Judah's persistent sin and refusal to repent would bring devastating consequences. The nation's leaders and citizens alike had abandoned God's laws and embraced corruption, prompting Isaiah to announce coming destruction. Now Isaiah shifts to an allegory comparing Israel to a vineyard, illustrating God's patient care for His people and their disappointing failure to produce the righteousness He expected from them.
[1] Now let me sing to my Well-beloved
A song of my Beloved regarding His vineyard:
My Well-beloved has a vineyard
On a very fruitful hill.
[2] He dug it up and cleared out its stones,
And planted it with the choicest vine.
He built a tower in its midst,
And also made a winepress in it;
So He expected it to bring forth good grapes,
But it brought forth wild grapes.
[3] “And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah,
Judge, please, between Me and My vineyard.
[4] What more could have been done to My vineyard
That I have not done in it?
Why then, when I expected it to bring forth good grapes,
Did it bring forth wild grapes?
[5] And now, please let Me tell you what I will do to My vineyard:
I will take away its hedge, and it shall be burned;
And break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down.
[6] I will lay it waste;
It shall not be pruned or dug,
But there shall come up briers and thorns.
I will also command the clouds
That they rain no rain on it.”
[7] For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel,
And the men of Judah are His pleasant plant.
He looked for justice, but behold, oppression;
For righteousness, but behold, a cry for help.
[8] Woe to those who join house to house;
They add field to field,
Till there is no place
Where they may dwell alone in the midst of the land!
[9] In my hearing the Lord of hosts said,
“Truly, many houses shall be desolate,
Great and beautiful ones, without inhabitant.
[10] For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath,
And a homer of seed shall yield one ephah.”
St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians 6:18-7:11
Paul has been addressing various issues reported to him about the Corinthian church, including sexual immorality and lawsuits among believers. He has just argued that sexual sin is uniquely serious because it violates the body, which is a temple of the Holy Spirit, contrasting it with other sins and emphasizing that believers were bought with a price. He explained that joining with a prostitute makes one body with her, while being joined to the Lord makes one spirit with Him. Paul has been correcting the Corinthians' misunderstanding of Christian freedom, showing that while all things may be lawful, not all things are beneficial, and believers should not be mastered by anything. He is now transitioning from addressing sexual immorality to answering specific questions the Corinthians had written to him about marriage and celibacy.
[18] Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. [19] Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? [20] For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
[1] Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me:
It is good for a man not to touch a woman. [2] Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. [3] Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. [4] The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. [5] Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. [6] But I say this as a concession, not as a commandment. [7] For I wish that all men were even as I myself. But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that.
[8] But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am; [9] but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
[10] Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband. [11] But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife.
The Pharisees approach Jesus while he is in the region of Judea beyond the Jordan, where large crowds have been following him and he has been healing the sick. This encounter occurs during Jesus's final journey toward Jerusalem, a period marked by increasing tension with religious authorities. The Pharisees arrive with a question designed to test Jesus, seeking to trap him in a controversial theological debate about the grounds for divorce—a divisive issue among Jewish teachers of the time, with different rabbinical schools holding opposing views on the interpretation of Mosaic law. The Pharisees are addressing Jesus.
[3] The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?”
[4] And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ [5] and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’ ? [6] So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
[7] They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?”
[8] He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. [9] And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.”
[10] His disciples said to Him, “If such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry.”
[11] But He said to them, “All cannot accept this saying, but only those to whom it has been given: [12] For there are eunuchs who were born thus from their mother’s womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He who is able to accept it, let him accept it.”