He sprouted up like a twig before God, ¹  like a root out of parched soil; ²  he had no stately form or majesty that might catch our attention, ³  no special appearance that we should want to follow him. ⁴ 

along with the plants by the mouth of the river. ¹  All the cultivated land near the river will turn to dust and be blown away. ² 

They will lay it waste. It will lie parched ¹  and empty before me. The whole land will be laid waste. But no one living in it will pay any heed. ² 

They are dismayed because the ground is cracked ¹  because there has been no rain in the land. The farmers, too, are dismayed and bury their faces in their hands.

The Lord ¹  will attack the north ²  and destroy Assyria. He will make Nineveh a heap of ruins; it will be as barren ³  as the desert.

Later during the mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come here and have ¹  some food! Dip your bread ²  in the vinegar!” So she sat down beside the harvesters. Then he handed ³  her some roasted grain. She ate until she was full and saved the rest. ⁴ 

So Abigail quickly took two hundred loaves of bread, two containers ¹  of wine, five prepared sheep, five seahs ²  of roasted grain, a hundred bunches of raisins, and two hundred lumps of pressed figs. She loaded them on donkeys

to satisfy a devastated and desolate land, and to cause it to sprout with vegetation? ¹ 

They were hungry and thirsty; they fainted from exhaustion. ¹ 

For he has satisfied those who thirst, ¹  and those who hunger he has filled with food. ² 

Our skin is hot as an oven due to a fever from hunger. ¹ 

“‘If you present a grain offering of first ripe grain to the Lord, you must present your grain offering of first ripe grain as soft kernels roasted in fire – crushed bits of fresh grain. ¹ 

I will make streams flow down the slopes and produce springs in the middle of the valleys. I will turn the desert into a pool of water and the arid land into springs.

O God, you cause abundant showers to fall ¹  on your chosen people. ²  When they ³  are tired, you sustain them, ⁴ 

My heart is parched ¹  and withered like grass, for I am unable ²  to eat food. ³ 

the grave, ¹  the barren womb, ²  land that is not satisfied with water, and fire that never says, “Enough!” ³ 

Let the desert and dry region be happy; ¹  let the wilderness ²  rejoice and bloom like a lily!

But Babylonia will be put to great shame. The land where you were born ¹  will be disgraced. Indeed, ²  Babylonia will become the least important of all nations. It will become a dry and barren desert.

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 

The grains of seed ¹  have shriveled beneath their shovels. ²  Storehouses have been decimated and granaries have been torn down, for the grain has dried up.