The day you begin cultivating, you do what you can to make it grow; ¹  the morning you begin planting, you do what you can to make it sprout. Yet the harvest will disappear ²  in the day of disease and incurable pain.

When ¹  the fig tree does not bud, and there are no grapes on the vines; when the olive trees do not produce, ²  and the fields yield no crops; ³  when the sheep disappear ⁴  from the pen, and there are no cattle in the stalls,

He will not escape the darkness; ¹  a flame will wither his shoots and he will depart by the breath of God’s mouth. ² 

Like a vine he will let his sour grapes fall, ¹  and like an olive tree he will shed his blossoms. ²