He, ¹  the God who leads you, will expel the nations little by little. You will not be allowed to destroy them all at once lest the wild animals overrun you.

The wild animals of the desert honor me, the jackals and ostriches, because I put water in the desert and streams in the wilderness, to quench the thirst of my chosen people,

“I made the earth and the people and animals on it by my mighty power and great strength, ¹  and I give it to whomever I see fit. ² 

For a nation from the north ¹  will attack Babylon. It will lay her land waste. People and animals will flee out of it. No one will inhabit it.’

“Son of man, suppose a country sins against me by being unfaithful, and I stretch out my hand against it, cut off its bread supply, ¹  cause famine to come on it, and kill both people and animals.

He called out loudly ¹  as follows: ²  ‘Chop down the tree and lop off its branches! Strip off its foliage and scatter its fruit! Let the animals flee from under it and the birds from its branches!

Do not fear, wild animals! ¹  For the pastures of the wilderness are again green with grass. Indeed, the trees bear their fruit; the fig tree and the vine yield to their fullest. ² 

Should I ¹  not be even more ²  concerned ³  about Nineveh, this enormous city? ⁴  There are more than one hundred twenty thousand people in it who do not know right from wrong, ⁵  as well as many animals!” ⁶ 

For you will pay in full for your violent acts against Lebanon; ¹  terrifying judgment will come upon you because of the way you destroyed the wild animals living there. ²  You have shed human blood and committed violent acts against lands, cities, and those who live in them.

“I will destroy people and animals; I will destroy the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea. (The idolatrous images of these creatures will be destroyed along with evil people.) ¹  I will remove ²  humanity from the face of the earth,” says the Lord.

This is the kind of plague that will devastate horses, mules, camels, donkeys, and all the other animals in those camps.

But ¹  these men, ²  like irrational animals – creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed ³  – do not understand whom ⁴  they are insulting, and consequently ⁵  in their destruction they will be destroyed, ⁶ 

So the Lord said, “I will wipe humankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth – everything from humankind to animals, ¹  including creatures that move on the ground and birds of the air, for I regret that I have made them.”

Every living creature, every creeping thing, every bird, and everything that moves on the earth went out of the ark in their groups.

Moreover, the fat of an animal that has died of natural causes ¹  and the fat of an animal torn by beasts may be used for any other purpose, ²  but you must certainly never eat it.

“‘Now this is what is unclean to you among the swarming things that swarm on the land: ¹  the rat, the mouse, the large lizard of any kind,

You are to offer them with their drink offerings in addition to the continual burnt offering and its grain offering – they must be unblemished.

Thus they will have towns in which to live, and their grazing lands will be for their cattle, for their possessions, and for all their animals.

The Philistine said to David, “Come here to me, so I can give your flesh to the birds of the sky and the wild animals of the field!” ¹ 

Who really knows if the human spirit ¹  ascends upward, and the animal’s spirit descends into the earth?