He built up Tadmor in the wilderness and all the storage cities he had built in Hamath.

For forty years you sustained them. Even in the desert they never lacked anything. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.

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.

to cause it to rain on an uninhabited land, ¹  a desert where there are no human beings, ² 

Your lips are like a scarlet thread; ¹  your mouth is lovely. Your forehead ²  behind your veil is like a slice of pomegranate.

Is this the one who made the world like a desert, who ruined its ¹  cities, and refused to free his prisoners so they could return home?”’ ² 

Send rams as tribute to the ruler of the land, ¹  from Sela in the desert ²  to the hill of Daughter Zion.

This desolation will continue until new life is poured out on us from heaven. ¹  Then the desert will become an orchard and the orchard will be considered a forest. ² 

A voice cries out, “In the wilderness clear a way for the Lord; construct in the desert a road for our God.

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.

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 

all the kings of Arabia who ¹  live in the desert;

The Lord says, “The people of Israel who survived death at the hands of the enemy ¹  will find favor in the wilderness as they journey to find rest for themselves.

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.

ק (Qof) Those who pursued us were swifter than eagles ¹  in the sky. ²  They chased us over the mountains; they ambushed us in the wilderness.

Yet I had pity on ¹  them and did not destroy them, so I did not make an end of them in the wilderness.

I will bring you into the wilderness of the nations, and there I will enter into judgment with you face to face.

However, in the future I will allure her; ¹  I will lead ²  her back into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.

You did not bring me ¹  sacrifices and grain offerings during the forty years you spent in the wilderness, family ²  of Israel.

and rejected Esau. ¹  I turned Esau’s ²  mountains into a deserted wasteland ³  and gave his territory ⁴  to the wild jackals.”