Seeing a lone fig tree by the road, he went up to it and found nothing on it except leaves. And he said to it, ‘May no fruit ever come from you again! ’ At once the fig tree withered.
These people are dangerous reefs at your love feasts as they eat with you without reverence. They are shepherds who only look after themselves. They are waterless clouds carried along by winds; trees in late autumn #– #fruitless, twice dead and uprooted.
He broke up the soil, cleared it of stones, and planted it with the finest vines. He built a tower in the middle of it and even dug out a winepress there. He expected it to yield good grapes, but it yielded worthless grapes.
‘I will gather them and bring them to an end.’ , This is the Lord’s declaration. ‘There will be no grapes on the vine, no figs on the fig tree, and even the leaf will wither. Whatever I have given them will be lost to them.’