[The Devil’s Gift took last week off. My hands were full tending 2 two-month-old rambunctious puppies while my wife was in exotic Morocco at a photography workshop. No time to think, let alone compose a blog post. Still, there was time to weep for the world. So I offer you this song of lament from Sinead O’Connor, released 16 years ago, based directly on Isaiah chapter five.  Jerusalem, she says, stands for the Israelis, Judah for the Palestinians. Click on the video below to see her performance of “If You Had a Vineyard.”]

* * *

If you had a vineyard
On a fruitful hill
And you fenced it and cleared it
Of all stones until
You planted it
With the choicest of vine
And you even built a tower
And a press to make wine
And you looked that it would bring forth sweet grapes
And it gave only wild grapes

What would you say
Jerusalem and Judah
You be the judges I pray
Between me and my vineyard
This is what God says

What more could I have done in it
That I did not do in it
Why when I ask it for sweetness
It brings only bitterness

For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts
Is the house of Israel
And the men of Judah
His pleasant plant

And he looks for justice but beholds oppression
And he hopes for equality but hears a cry
Jerusalem and Judah
This is God’s reply

Sadness will come
To those who build house to house
And lay field to field ’til there’s room
For none but you to dwell in the land
Oh in the land

And sadness will come
To those who call evil good
And good evil who present
Darkness as light
And light as darkness
Who present as sweetness
Only the things which are bitterness

For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts
Is the house of Israel
And the men of Judah his pleasant plant
Oh oh his pleasant plant

Oh that my eyes were a fountain of tears
That I might weep for my poor people
For every boot stamped with fierceness
For every cloak rolled in blood
Jerusalem and Judah
I’d cry if I could

* * *

THANKS to my nephew Billy Hyatt for introducing me to this song.

ALERT: If when commenting you get this message—Duplicate comment detected; it looks as though you’ve already said that!—ignore and submit comment. Working on resolving that glitch.