I also swore ¹  to them in the wilderness that I would not bring them to the land I had given them – a land flowing with milk and honey, the most beautiful of all lands.

Just as I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you, declares the sovereign Lord.

“‘I will make a covenant of peace with them and will rid the land of wild beasts, so that they can live securely ¹  in the wilderness and even sleep in the woods. ² 

Otherwise, I will strip her naked, and expose her like she was when she was born. I will turn her land into a wilderness and make her country a parched land, so that I might kill ¹  her with thirst.

Like fire they devour everything in their path; ¹  a flame blazes behind them. The land looks like the Garden of Eden ²  before them, but behind them there is only a desolate wilderness – for nothing escapes them! ³ 

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 

Egypt will be desolate and Edom will be a desolate wilderness, because of the violence they did to the people of Judah, ¹  in whose land they shed innocent blood.

For he is the one about whom Isaiah the prophet had spoken: ¹  “The voice ²  of one shouting in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make ³  his paths straight.’” ⁴ 

While they were going away, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness ¹  to see? A reed shaken by the wind? ² 

So then, if someone ¹  says to you, ‘Look, he is in the wilderness,’ ²  do not go out, or ‘Look, he is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe him.

As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, “The voice ¹  of one shouting in the wilderness: ²  ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make ³  his paths straight.

When ¹  John’s messengers had gone, Jesus ²  began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness ³  to see? A reed shaken by the wind? ⁴ 

Thus Jesus no longer went ¹  around publicly ²  among the Judeans, ³  but went away from there to the region near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim, ⁴  and stayed there with his disciples.

This is the man who was in the congregation ¹  in the wilderness ²  with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors, ³  and he ⁴  received living oracles ⁵  to give to you. ⁶ 

Our ancestors ¹  had the tabernacle ²  of testimony in the wilderness, ³  just as God ⁴  who spoke to Moses ordered him ⁵  to make it according to the design he had seen.

So ¹  he carried me away in the Spirit ²  to a wilderness, ³  and there ⁴  I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns.

Early in the morning Abraham took ¹  some food ²  and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He put them on her shoulders, gave her the child, ³  and sent her away. So she went wandering ⁴  aimlessly through the wilderness ⁵  of Beer Sheba.

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 elders ¹  will listen ²  to you, and then you and the elders of Israel must go to the king of Egypt and tell him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met ³  with us. So now, let us go ⁴  three days’ journey into the wilderness, so that we may sacrifice ⁵  to the Lord our God.’

Aaron is to lay his two hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities of the Israelites and all their transgressions in regard to all their sins, ¹  and thus he is to put them ²  on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man standing ready. ³