The reading was Isaiah 40:21-31, and as I was following along in the Latin Vulgate, I noticed a particular word in verse 24:
et quidem neque plantatos neque satos neque radicato in terra trunco eorum repente flavit in eos et aruerunt et turbo quasi stipulam auferet eos
In the ESV, this is:
Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows on them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.
The word "stipulam" ("stubble") stood out to me because I wrote about it in Malachi 4:1 last year. Similar comments apply here: the Latin word is a diminutive (with the "-ula(m)" suffix), and there may be a slightly disparaging sense in its use in this context, although this isn't present in the Hebrew, where the word is קַשׁ, just as in Malachi 4:1.
