Ezekiel 15
1 Yahweh gave me another message. [He said],
The word of YHWH 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, what is the vine tree more than any tree, the vine-branch which is among the trees of 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.
Shall wood be taken of it to make any work? Or will men take a pin of it to hang any vessel thereon?
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?
Look, it is cast into the fire for fuel; the fire has devoured both its ends, and its midst is burned: is it profitable for any work?
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.
Look, when it was whole, it was meet for no work: how much less, when the fire has devoured it, and it is burned, shall it yet be meet for any work.
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].
"Therefore thus says YHWH: 'As the vine tree among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so will I give the inhabitants 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 set my face against them; they shall go forth from the fire, but the fire shall devour them; and you shall know that I am YHWH, when I set my face against them.
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 will make the land desolate, because they have committed a trespass,' says YHWH."
