עֵץ

Come, gather together, and draw near, you fugitives from the nations. Ignorant are those who carry idols of wood and pray to a god that cannot save.

You will indeed go out with joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.

Let no foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say, “The LORD will utterly exclude me from His people.” And let the eunuch not say, “I am but a dry tree.”

…who burn with lust among the oaks, under every luxuriant tree, who slaughter your children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks?

Instead of bronze I will bring you gold; I will bring silver in place of iron, bronze instead of wood, and iron instead of stones. I will appoint peace as your governor and righteousness as your ruler.

No longer will they build houses for others to inhabit, nor plant for others to eat. For as is the lifetime of a tree, so will be the days of My people, and My chosen ones will fully enjoy the work of their hands.

“For long ago you broke your yoke and tore off your chains, saying, ‘I will not serve!’ Indeed, on every high hill and under every green tree you lay down as a prostitute.

…say to a tree, ‘You are my father,’ and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’ They have turned their backs to Me and not their faces. Yet in the time of trouble, they say, ‘Rise up and save us!’

Now in the days of King Josiah, the LORD said to me, “Have you seen what faithless Israel has done? She has gone up on every high hill and under every green tree to prostitute herself there.

Indifferent to her own infidelity, Israel had defiled the land and committed adultery with stones and trees.

Only acknowledge your guilt, that you have rebelled against the LORD your God. You have scattered your favors to foreign gods under every green tree and have not obeyed My voice,’” declares the LORD.

Therefore this is what the LORD God of Hosts says: “Because you have spoken this word, I will make My words a fire in your mouth and this people the wood it consumes.

The sons gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough to make cakes for the Queen of Heaven; they pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke Me to anger.

Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, My anger and My fury will be poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the trees of the field and the produce of the land, and it will burn and not be extinguished.

For the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut down a tree from the forest; it is shaped with a chisel by the hands of a craftsman.

But they are altogether senseless and foolish, instructed by worthless idols made of wood!

For I was like a gentle lamb led to slaughter; I did not know that they had plotted against me: “Let us destroy the tree with its fruit; let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be remembered no more.”

Even their children remember their altars and Asherah poles by the green trees and on the high hills.

He is like a tree planted by the waters that sends out its roots toward the stream. It does not fear when the heat comes, and its leaves are always green. It does not worry in a year of drought, nor does it cease to produce fruit.

“Go and tell Hananiah that this is what the LORD says: ‘You have broken a yoke of wood, but in its place you have fashioned a yoke of iron.’

Egypt will hiss like a fleeing serpent, for the enemy will advance in force; with axes they will come against her like woodsmen cutting down trees.

But now their appearance is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets. Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as a stick.

We must buy the water we drink; our wood comes at a price.

Young men toil at millstones; boys stagger under loads of wood.

Then you will know that I am the LORD, when their slain lie among their idols around their altars, on every high hill, on all the mountaintops, and under every green tree and leafy oak—the places where they offered fragrant incense to all their idols.

“Son of man, how does the wood of the vine surpass any other branch among the trees in the forest?

Can wood be taken from it to make something useful? Or can one make from it a peg on which to hang utensils?

Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Like the wood of the vine among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so I will give up the people of Jerusalem.

Then all the trees of the field will know that I am the LORD. I bring the tall tree down and make the low tree tall. I dry up the green tree and make the withered tree flourish. I, the LORD, have spoken, and I have done it.’”

When I brought them into the land that I swore to give them and they saw any high hill or leafy tree, there they offered their sacrifices, presented offerings that provoked Me, sent up their fragrant incense, and poured out their drink offerings.

When you say, ‘Let us be like the nations, like the peoples of the lands, serving wood and stone,’ what you have in mind will never come to pass.

Say to the forest of the Negev: Hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Lord GOD says: I am about to ignite in you a fire, and it will devour all your trees, both green and dry. The blazing flame will not be quenched, and by it every face from south to north will be scorched.

…it is sharpened for the slaughter, polished to flash like lightning! Should we rejoice in the scepter of My son? The sword despises every such stick.

Pile on the logs and kindle the fire; cook the meat well and mix in the spices; let the bones be burned.

They will plunder your wealth and pillage your merchandise. They will demolish your walls, tear down your beautiful homes, and throw your stones and timber and soil into the water.

The waters made it grow; the deep springs made it tall, directing their streams all around its base and sending their channels to all the trees of the field.

Therefore it towered higher than all the trees of the field. Its branches multiplied, and its boughs grew long as it spread them out because of the abundant waters.

The cedars in the garden of God could not rival it; the cypresses could not compare with its branches, nor the plane trees match its boughs. No tree in the garden of God could compare with its beauty.

I made it beautiful with its many branches, the envy of all the trees of Eden, which were in the garden of God.’

This happened so that no other trees by the waters would become great in height and set their tops among the clouds, and no other well-watered trees would reach them in height. For they have all been consigned to death, to the depths of the earth, among the mortals who descend to the Pit.’

This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘On the day it was brought down to Sheol, I caused mourning. I covered the deep because of it; I held back its rivers; its abundant waters were restrained. I made Lebanon mourn for it, and all the trees of the field fainted because of it.

I made the nations quake at the sound of its downfall, when I cast it down to Sheol with those who descend to the Pit. Then all the trees of Eden, the choicest and best of Lebanon, all the well-watered trees, were consoled in the earth below.