Ezekiel 15

1 Yahweh gave me another message. [He said],

A message from the Lord came to me, saying,

2 “You human, the wood of a grapevine is certainly not [RHQ] more useful that the branches of the trees in a forest.

“Son of man, is wood from a vine better than the wood from any other tree in the forest?

3 No one [RHQ] ever takes a branch of a grapevine and makes anything [useful] from it. No one [RHQ] even makes pegs from them to hang things on.

Can you make anything useful from vine wood? Can you use it to make even just a peg to hang up pots and pans?

4 And after a branch of a grapevine is thrown into a fire, and the fire burns both ends and chars/scorches the branch in the middle, will it then be useful for anything?

No, you just throw it on the fire to keep the fire burning. Even then the fire burns both ends, but only chars the middle part. Can you use it for anything?

5 No; if it was not useful for anything before it was burned, it certainly cannot [made into something] useful after the fire has burned and charred it.

Even before you burned it you couldn't make it into anything useful. It's even less useful once the fire has burned and charred it!

6 Therefore, this is what [I], Yahweh the Lord, say: The wood of grapevines is useful only for fuel in a fire. Similarly, the people who live in [are useless].

So this is what the Lord God says: In the same way that I have taken the wood of a vine from the forest and thrown it on the fire to be burned, so I'm going to throw away the people of Jerusalem.

7 I will reject [IDM] them. [It will be as though] they have escaped from a fire, but there will still be a fire that will burn them up. And when I punish [EUP] them, you [people who remain alive] will know that I, Yahweh, [have done it].

I will turn against them. While they might have escaped this fire, another fire is going to burn them up. When I turn against them, then you will know that I am the Lord.

8 I will cause your country to become a wasteland because your people have not been loyal [to me. That is what I], Yahweh, the Lord, say.”

I'm going to turn the country into a wasteland, because they were unfaithful to me, declares the Lord God.”