'Sticks' in the Bible

Now while the Israelites were in the wilderness, they found a man who was gathering wood on the Sabbath day.

Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation;

The Philistine said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come to me with [shepherd’s] staffs?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.

So he set out and went to Zarephath, and when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks [for firewood]. He called out to her and said, “Please bring me a little water in a jar, so that I may drink.”

But she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have no bread, only a handful of flour in the bowl and a little oil in the jar. See, I am gathering a few sticks so that I may go in and bake it for me and my son, that we may eat it [as our last meal] and die.”

The man of too many friends [chosen indiscriminately] will be broken in pieces and come to ruin,But there is a [true, loving] friend who [is reliable and] sticks closer than a brother.

The sticks on which you write shall be in your hand before their eyes.

“In that day I will make the clans of Judah like a firepot in a woodpile, and like a flaming torch among sheaves [of grain]. They will devour all the surrounding peoples on the right hand and on the left; and the people of Jerusalem will again live [securely] in their own place, in Jerusalem.