"I have overthrown some of you, As when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, And you were like a burning stick plucked out of the fire; Yet you haven't returned to me," says Yahweh.
And ye, who escaped, were as a firebrand, plucked out of the burning - Once it had been green, fresh, fragrant, with leaf or flower; now scorched, charred, blackened, all but consumed. In itself, it was fit for nothing, but to be cast back into the fire from where it had been rescued. Man would so deal with it. A re-creation alone could restore it. Slight emblem of a soul, whose freshness sin had withered, then God’s severe judgment had half-consumed; in itself, meet only for the everlasting fire, from which yet God withdraws it.