10-14 Here’s another way to put it:
    Your mother was like a vine in a vineyard,
    transplanted alongside streams of water,
Luxurious in branches and grapes
    because of the ample water.
It grew sturdy branches
    fit to be carved into a royal scepter.
It grew high, reaching into the clouds.
    Its branches filled the horizon,
    and everyone could see it.
Then it was ripped up in a rage
    and thrown to the ground.
The hot east wind shriveled it up
    and stripped its fruit.
The sturdy branches dried out,
    fit for nothing but kindling.
Now it’s a stick stuck out in the desert,
    a bare stick in a desert of death,
Good for nothing but making fires,
    campfires in the desert.
Not a hint now of those sturdy branches
    fit for use as a royal scepter!

(This is a sad song, a text for singing the blues.)

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11 Its branches were strong,
    fit for a ruler’s scepter.
It towered high
    above the thick foliage,
conspicuous for its height
    and for its many branches.(A)
12 But it was uprooted(B) in fury
    and thrown to the ground.
The east wind(C) made it shrivel,
    it was stripped of its fruit;
its strong branches withered
    and fire consumed them.(D)
13 Now it is planted in the desert,(E)
    in a dry and thirsty land.(F)

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