All along the way I, the Lord your God, ¹  have blessed your every effort. ²  I have ³  been attentive to ⁴  your travels through this great wasteland. These forty years I have ⁵  been with you; you have lacked for nothing.’”

Remember the whole way by which he ¹  has brought you these forty years through the desert ²  so that he might, by humbling you, test you to see if you have it within you to keep his commandments or not.

Otherwise the people of the land ¹  from which you brought us will say, “The Lord was unable to bring them to the land he promised them, and because of his hatred for them he has brought them out to kill them in the desert.” ² 

Early the next morning they marched out to the Desert of Tekoa. When they were ready to march, Jehoshaphat stood up and said: “Listen to me, you people of Judah ¹  and residents of Jerusalem! Trust in the Lord your God and you will be safe! ²  Trust in the message of his prophets and you will win.”

It is better to live ¹  in a desert land ²  than with a quarrelsome and easily-provoked ³  woman.

“The Lord says, ¹  ‘That is why I will scatter your people ²  like chaff that is blown away by a desert wind. ³ 

“‘But the children ¹  rebelled against me, did not follow my statutes, did not observe my regulations by carrying them out (the one who obeys ²  them will live by them), and desecrated my Sabbaths. I decided to pour out ³  my rage on them and fully vent my anger against them in the wilderness.

Like ¹  wild donkeys in the desert they ²  go out to their labor, ³  seeking diligently for food; the wasteland provides ⁴  food for them and for their children.

Let the desert and its cities shout out, the towns where the nomads of Kedar live! Let the residents of Sela shout joyfully; let them shout loudly from the mountaintops.

“At that time the people of Judah and Jerusalem ¹  will be told, ‘A scorching wind will sweep down from the hilltops in the desert on ²  my dear people. ³  It will not be a gentle breeze for winnowing the grain and blowing away the chaff. ⁴ 

I looked and saw that the fruitful land had become a desert and that all of the cities had been laid in ruins. The Lord had brought this all about because of his blazing anger. ¹ 

(9:1) I wish I had a lodging place in the desert where I could spend some time like a weary traveler. ¹  Then I would desert my people and walk away from them because they are all unfaithful to God, a congregation ²  of people that has been disloyal to him. ³ 

The towns of Babylonia have become heaps of ruins. She has become a dry and barren desert. No one lives in those towns any more. No one even passes through them. ¹ 

Reuben continued, ¹  “Don’t shed blood! Throw him into this cistern that is here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.” ²  (Reuben said this ³  so he could rescue Joseph ⁴  from them ⁵  and take him back to his father.)

The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died ¹  by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by ²  the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full, ³  for you have brought us out into this desert to kill ⁴  this whole assembly with hunger!”

You people of this generation, listen to what the Lord says. “Have I been like a wilderness to you, Israel? Have I been like a dark and dangerous land to you? ¹  Why then do you ²  say, ‘We are free to wander. ³  We will not come to you any more?’

I said, ¹  “I will weep and mourn ²  for the grasslands on the mountains, ³  I will sing a mournful song for the pastures in the wilderness because they are so scorched no one travels through them. The sound of livestock is no longer heard there. Even the birds in the sky and the wild animals in the fields have fled and are gone.”

When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the wilderness. I viewed your ancestors ¹  like an early fig on a fig tree in its first season. Then they came to Baal-Peor and they dedicated themselves to shame – they became as detestable as what they loved.

And they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Let us go a three-day journey ¹  into the desert so that we may sacrifice ²  to the Lord our God, so that he does not strike us with plague or the sword.” ³ 

I will set ¹  your boundaries from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert to the River, ²  for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you will drive them out before you.