Behold, if it has been cast into the fire for fuel and the fire has devoured both ends of it and the middle of it is burned, is it useful for any work?
When its boughs are withered, they are broken off; the women come and make a fire with them, for they are not a people of understanding; therefore, their maker will not have mercy on them, and their Creator will show them no grace.
Therefore thus says the Lord God: As the wood of the vine tree among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so I will give the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Fire has gone out from its branch; it has devoured its shoots and fruit, so that there is no strong rod in it, a scepter to rule. This is a lamentation, and has become a lamentation.
I destroyed some of you, as God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. You were like a firebrand plucked out of the fire; yet you did not return to Me, says the Lord.
Surely the day is coming, burning like an oven; all the proud, yes, all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming will burn them up, says the Lord of Hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.
His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean His floor and gather His wheat into the granary, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”