"Our vines have tender grapes."
There aren't many verses in Scripture more delicate or gentle as that one.
"...and every [branch] that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
Amen. We all face trials and difficulties and anxious moments. very one of them is given by God to make us trust in Him alone and to conform us to His perfect Son.
And then we come to the OT truth revealed more clearly in the NT by Christ when He tells us those branches are growing from the "the true vine," the root of God, Jesus Christ, in whom we are all one and have been from before the foundation of the world.
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye [are] the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. - John 15:3-5 "Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
AMEN! What strength the Christian can draw from Christ's words here. He's telling believers that their faith results from Christ indwelling them by the will of God. God, who made us, made us to "abide in Christ" and Christ in us.
That's the reason we were created in the first place...because without Him we can do nothing.
And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning." -- John 15:26-27"But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:
"From the beginning..."
Here's one more to underscore the root of God, the true vine, Jesus Christ:
For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, [there is] no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were [our] faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he [was] wounded for our transgressions, [he was] bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace [was] upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. - Isaiah 53:1-6