When its twigs are dry, they are broken off, women come and set them on fire. For it is a people of no understanding, therefore He who made them has no compassion on them, and He who formed them shows them no favour.
“Therefore thus said the Master יהוה, ‘As the vine tree among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so I shall give up the inhabitants of Yerushalayim.
‘And fire went out from a rod of her branches. It devoured her fruit, so that she has no strong rod, a sceptre to rule.’ ” This is a lament, and it shall be a lament.
“For look, the day shall come, burning like a furnace, and all the proud, and every wrongdoer shall be stubble. And the day that shall come shall burn them up,” said יהוה of hosts, “which leaves to them neither root nor branch.
“His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He shall thoroughly cleanse His threshing-floor, and gather His wheat into the storehouse, but the chaff He shall burn with unquenchable fire.”