The trees shall bear fruit, and who will gather it? The grapes shall ripen, and who will tread them?: Compare Lev 26.16, 20. The obvious answer to these two rhetorical questions is “No one.” After most people have died, the orchards and vineyards will continue to produce, but for no purpose. For grapes see the comments on 2 Esd 9.21. Tread them refers to trampling the grapes in a winepress, so that their juice flows out, and eventually becomes wine. It is part of the wine-producing process. In a number of languages these rhetorical questions will need to be rendered as statements, for example, “The trees will bear fruit, but there will be no one to gather it. The grapevines will have grapes, but there will be no one to make wine.”

For in all places there will be great solitude: The conjunction For introduces the reason why there will be no one to harvest the fruit or make the wine. It is because there will be very few people alive. Great solitude is better rendered “complete loneliness” rather than “desolation” (Good News Bible).

An alternative model for verses 25-26 based on Contemporary English Version is:

• 25 Trees will still produce fruit, but no one will gather it. 26 Grape vines will still have grapes, but no one will make wine. The earth will be as lonely as a desert.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on 1-2 Esdras. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2019. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.