For though the fig-tree has no flowers, and there is no fruit on the vine, and work on the olive comes to nothing, and the fields give no food; and the flock is cut off from its resting-place, and there is no herd in the cattle-house:

And he made a story for them, the point of which was that men were to go on making prayer and not get tired;

Have no cares; but in everything with prayer and praise put your requests before God.

The fire

Before them fire sends destruction, and after them flame is burning: the land is like the garden of Eden before them, and after them an unpeopled waste; truly, nothing has been kept safe from them.

Give yourselves to weeping, crying out in sorrow for the mountains; and for the fields of the waste land send up a song of grief, because they are burned up, so that no one goes through; there is no sound of cattle; the bird of the heavens and the beast are in flight and are gone.

This is what the Lord let me see: and I saw that the Lord God sent for a great fire to be the instrument of his punishment; and, after burning up the great deep, it was about to put an end to the Lord's heritage.

General references

And destruction came on every living thing moving on the earth, birds and cattle and beasts and everything which went on the earth, and every man.

For this cause the heaven over you is kept from giving dew, and the earth from giving her fruit.