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 

I will make cedars, acacias, myrtles, and olive trees grow in the wilderness; I will make evergreens, firs, and cypresses grow together in the desert.

Many foreign rulers ¹  will ruin the land where I planted my people. ²  They will trample all over my chosen land. ³  They will turn my beautiful land into a desolate wasteland.

They will be like a shrub ¹  in the desert. They will not experience good things even when they happen. It will be as though they were growing in the desert, in a salt land where no one can live.

ג (Gimel) Even the jackals ¹  nurse their young at their breast, ²  but my people ³  are cruel, like ostriches ⁴  in the desert.

“‘But I said to their children ¹  in the wilderness, “Do not follow the practices of your fathers; do not observe their regulations, ²  nor defile yourselves with their idols.

The sound of a carefree crowd accompanied her, ¹  including all kinds of men; ²  even Sabeans ³  were brought from the desert. The sisters ⁴  put bracelets on their wrists and beautiful crowns on their heads.

“‘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 

Just as ¹  Moses lifted up the serpent ²  in the wilderness, ³  so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ⁴ 

“After ¹  forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the desert ²  of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning bush. ³ 

Then you’re not that Egyptian who started a rebellion ¹  and led the four thousand men of the ‘Assassins’ ²  into the wilderness ³  some time ago?” ⁴ 

Nadab and Abihu died ¹  before the Lord ²  when they offered ³  strange ⁴  fire ⁵  before the Lord in the wilderness of Sinai, and they had no children. ⁶  So Eleazar and Ithamar ministered as priests ⁷  in the presence of ⁸  Aaron their father.

For all the people have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have tempted ¹  me now these ten times, ²  and have not obeyed me, ³ 

Is it a small thing ¹  that you have brought us up out of the land that flows with milk and honey, ²  to kill us in the wilderness? Now do you want to make yourself a prince ³  over us?

But Sihon did not permit Israel to pass through his border; he ¹  gathered all his forces ²  together and went out against Israel into the wilderness. When ³  he came to Jahaz, he fought against Israel.

¹ When Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, ²  he did not go as at the other times ³  to seek for omens, ⁴  but he set his face ⁵  toward the wilderness.

“Our father died in the wilderness, although ¹  he was not part of ²  the company of those that gathered themselves together against the Lord in the company of Korah; but he died for his own sin, ³  and he had no sons.

So the Lord’s anger was kindled against the Israelites, and he made them wander in the wilderness for forty years, until all that generation that had done wickedly before ¹  the Lord was finished. ² 

Then we left Horeb and passed through all that immense, forbidding wilderness that you saw on the way to the Amorite hill country as the Lord our God had commanded us to do, finally arriving at Kadesh Barnea.

Your fathers ¹  cried out for help to the Lord; he made the area between you and the Egyptians dark, ²  and then drowned them in the sea. ³  You witnessed with your very own eyes ⁴  what I did in Egypt. You lived in the wilderness for a long time. ⁵