Nettles
Nettles grow where care has stopped. A passer-by in Proverbs sees a field “all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down” (24:31), and he learns something from the sight. The prophets use the same picture for ruin: in Hosea 9:6 “nettles shall possess” the pleasant places, and Zephaniah 2:9 pairs them with saltpits and desolation. Job 30:7 pictures people huddled together under nettles. Proverbs 24 is a good place to begin.
4 verses
Job
Among the bushes they brayed; under the nettles they were gathered together.
Proverbs
And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down.
Hosea
For, lo, they are gone because of destruction: Egypt shall gather them up, Memphis shall bury them: the pleasant places for their silver, nettles shall possess them: thorns shall be in their tabernacles.
Zephaniah
Therefore as I live, saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Surely Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah, even the breeding of nettles, and saltpits, and a perpetual desolation: the residue of my people shall spoil them, and the remnant of my people shall possess them.