Bible Verses About Ingratitude to God: Illustrated

I want to sing a song for someone I love, a song about my loved one and his vineyard. My loved one had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.

He dug up its stones and cleared them away, planted it with the choicest vines, built a watchtower in the middle of it, and carved out in its rock a winepress. He expected it to produce good grapes, but it produced only sour, wild grapes.

Now, citizens of Yerushalayim and people of Y'hudah, judge between me and my vineyard.

What more could I have done for my vineyard that I haven't already done in it? So why, when I expected good grapes, did it produce sour, wild grapes?

Now come, I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will remove its hedge, and [its grapes] will be eaten up; I will break through its fence, and [its vines] will be trampled down.

I will let it go to waste: it will be neither pruned nor hoed, but overgrown with briars and thorns. I will also order the clouds not to let rain fall on it.

Now the vineyard of ADONAI-Tzva'ot is the house of Isra'el, and the men of Y'hudah are the plant he delighted in. So he expected justice, but look - bloodshed! - and righteousness, but listen - cries of distress!

The word of ADONAI came to me:

"Human being, make Yerushalayim realize how disgusting her practices are.

Say that Adonai ELOHIM is telling Yerushalayim, 'By origin and birth you are of the land of the Kena'ani - your father was an Emori, and your mother was a Hitti.

As for your birth - on the day you were born nobody cut your umbilical cord, washed you in water to clean you off, rubbed salt on you or wrapped you in cloth.

No one seeing you had enough pity on you to do any of these things for you - no one had any compassion on you. Instead, you were thrown into an open field in your own filth on the day you were born.

"'I passed by and saw you there, wallowing in your own blood; and as you lay in your blood I said to you, "Live!" Yes, I said to you, as you lay in your blood, "Live!

I will increase your numbers just like plants growing in the field." And you did increase, you developed, you reached puberty, your breasts appeared, and your hair grew long; but you were naked and exposed.

"'Again I passed by you, looked at you and saw that your time had come, the time for love. So I spread my cloak over you to cover your private parts and entered into a covenant with you,' says Adonai ELOHIM, 'and you became mine.

Then I bathed you in water, washed the blood off you, and anointed you with oil.

I also clothed you with an embroidered gown, gave you fine leather sandals to wear, put a fine linen headband on your head and covered you with silk.

I gave you jewelry to wear, bracelets for your hands, a necklace for your neck,

a ring for your nose, earrings for your ears and a beautiful crown for your head.

Thus you were decked out in gold and silver; your clothing was of fine linen, silk and richly embroidered cloth; you ate the finest flour, honey and olive oil. You grew increasingly beautiful - you were fit to be queen.

Your fame spread among the nations because of your beauty, because it was perfect, due to my having bestowed my own splendor on you' says Adonai ELOHIM.

"'But you put your trust in your own beauty and began prostituting yourself because of your fame, soliciting everyone passing by and accepting all comers.