Each of them ¹  will be like a shelter from the wind and a refuge from a rainstorm; like streams of water in a dry region and like the shade of a large cliff in a parched land.

You are no more secure ¹  than Thebes ²  – she was located on the banks of the Nile; the waters surrounded her, her ³  rampart ⁴  was the sea, the water ⁵  was her wall.

They are like ¹  valleys ²  stretched forth, like gardens by the river’s side, like aloes ³  that the Lord has planted, and like cedar trees beside the waters.

The king’s heart ¹  is in the hand ²  of the Lord like channels of water; ³  he turns it wherever he wants.

As ¹  water disappears from the sea, ²  or a river drains away and dries up,

He has cut out channels ¹  through the rocks; his eyes have spotted ²  every precious thing.

The breath of God produces ice, and the breadth of the waters freeze solid.

He turns springs into streams; ¹  they flow between the mountains.

By his knowledge the primordial sea ¹  was broken open, ²  and the clouds drip down dew. ³ 

Should your springs be dispersed ¹  outside, your streams of water in the wide plazas?

I will leave you in the wilderness, you and all the fish of your waterways; you will fall in the open field and will not be gathered up or collected. ¹  I have given you as food to the beasts of the earth and the birds of the skies.

Every living creature which swarms where the river ¹  flows will live; there will be many fish, for these waters flow there. It will become fresh ²  and everything will live where the river flows.

Justice must flow like torrents of water, righteous actions ¹  like a stream that never dries up.

I will dry up the waterways and hand the land over to ¹  evil men. I will make the land and everything in it desolate by the hand of foreigners. I, the Lord, have spoken!

They are filled with food from your house, and you allow them to drink from the river of your delicacies.

When there were no deep oceans ¹  I was born, ²  when there were no springs overflowing ³  with water;

The words of a person’s mouth are like ¹  deep waters, ²  and ³  the fountain of wisdom ⁴  is like ⁵  a flowing brook. ⁶ 

Tell them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: “‘Look, I am against ¹  you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great monster ²  lying in the midst of its waterways, who has said, “My Nile is my own, I made it for myself.” ³ 

Foreigners from the most terrifying nations have cut it down and left it to lie there on the mountains. In all the valleys its branches have fallen, and its boughs lie broken in the ravines of the land. All the peoples of the land ¹  have departed ²  from its shade and left it.

therefore, O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the sovereign Lord: This is what the sovereign Lord says to the mountains and hills, the ravines and valleys, and to the desolate ruins and the abandoned cities that have become prey and an object of derision to the rest of the nations round about –