If even a tenth [of the people] remain, it will again be devoured. “But like a pistachio tree or an oak, whose trunk remains alive after its leaves fall off, the holy seed will be its trunk.”

It was told to the house of David that Aram and Efrayim had become allies. Achaz’s heart began to tremble, as did the hearts of his people, like forest trees shaken by the wind.

“The bricks have fallen, but we will rebuild with cut stone; the sycamore-fig trees have been chopped down, but we will replace them with cedars.”

So few forest trees will remain that a child could list them.

Yet gleanings will be left, as when beating an olive tree — two or three olives at the very top, four or five on its fruitful branches,” says Adonai, the God of Isra’el.

Around the earth, among the peoples, it will be as when beating an olive tree, as when gleaning the grapes at the end of the harvest.

The whole host of heaven will decompose, the heavens themselves be rolled up like a scroll; all their array will wither away like a withering grape-leaf that falls from a vine or a withered fig from a fig tree.

Don’t listen to Hizkiyahu.’ For this is what the king says: ‘Make peace with me, surrender to me. Then every one of you can eat from his vine and fig tree and drink the water in his own cistern,

“ ‘Through your servants you taunted Adonai. You said, “With my many chariots I have ascended the mountain heights even in the far reaches of the L’vanon. I cut down its tall cedars and its best cypress trees. I reached its remotest heights and its best forests.

I will plant the desert with cedars, acacias, myrtles and olive trees; In the ‘Aravah I will put cypresses together with elm trees and larches.”

He goes to chop down cedars; he takes an evergreen and an oak; he especially tends one tree in the forest, plants a pine for the rain to nourish.

Not one thinks to himself or has the knowledge or the discernment to say, “I burned half of it in the fire, baked bread on its coals, roasted meat and ate it. Should I now make the rest an abomination? Should I prostrate myself to a tree trunk?”

Sing, you heavens, for Adonai has done it! Shout, you depths of the earth! Mountains, break out into song, along with every tree in the forest! For Adonai has redeemed Ya‘akov; he glorifies himself in Isra’el.

Yes, you will go out with joy, you will be led forth in peace. As you come, the mountains and hills will burst out into song, and all the trees in the countryside will clap their hands.

A foreigner joining Adonai should not say, “Adonai will separate me from his people”; likewise the eunuch should not say, “I am only a dried-up tree.”

You go into heat among the oak trees, under every spreading tree. You kill the children in the valleys under the cracks in the rocks.

“The glory of the L’vanon will come to you, cypresses together with elm trees and larches, to beautify the site of my sanctuary — I will glorify the place where I stand.

They will not build and others live there, they will not plant and others eat; for the days of my people will be like the days of a tree, and my chosen will themselves enjoy the use of what they make.