15
1 Then the word of Yahweh came to me, saying,
2 “Son of man, how is a vine better than any tree with branches that is among the trees in a forest?
3 Do people take wood from a vine to make anything? Or do they make a peg from it to hang anything on it?
4 See! If it is thrown into a fire as fuel, and if the fire has burned both of its ends and also the middle, is it good for anything?
5 See! When it was complete, it could not make anything; surely then, when the fire has burned, then it still will not make anything useful.
6 Therefore the Lord Yahweh says this: Unlike the trees in the forests, I have given the vine as fuel for fires; I will act in the same way toward the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
7 For I will set my face against them. Though they come out from the fire, yet the fire will consume them; so you will know that I am Yahweh, when I set my face against them.
8 Then I will make the land into an abandoned wasteland because they have committed sin—this is the Lord Yahweh’s declaration.”
The Book of Ezekiel