1Then 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?

3Do people take wood from a vine to make anything? Or do they make a peg from it to hang anything on it?

4See! 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?

5See! When it was complete, it could not make anything; surely then, when the fire has burned, then it still will not make anything useful.

6Therefore 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.

7For 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.

8Then I will make the land into an abandoned wasteland because they have committed sin—this is the Lord Yahweh's declaration.”