Jeremiah 10:5
Jeremiah 10:55Like scarecrows in a cucumber patch, their idols cannot speak. They must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them, for they can do no harm, and neither can they do any good.”
Largely passed over in Watchtower teaching when is being cited as the Christmas-tree text. The reason is structural: verse 5 describes the object as a "scarecrow in a cucumber field" with feet that cannot walk and a mouth that cannot speak — features no Christmas tree has — and so the verse is left unread, while the previous two verses are pressed into service.
Verse 5 is the decisive verse against the Christmas-tree reading. The object Jeremiah is mocking has feet (that cannot walk), a mouth (that cannot speak), is carried in procession, and is called a scarecrow — a human-shaped effigy. Pair it with for the fuller Babylonian-cult-statue picture. Then read in the JW's own NWT and let Paul rule on festival liberty in their own translation: "the one who observes the day observes it to Jehovah." If Paul permits the observance, the Watchtower cannot forbid it on the strength of a passage that is not even about the topic.