Look at the land of the Chaldeans, these people who have lost their identity! ¹  The Assyrians have made it a home for wild animals. They erected their siege towers, ²  demolished ³  its fortresses, and turned it into a heap of ruins. ⁴ 

The city is left in ruins; ¹  the gate is reduced to rubble. ² 

I said, ¹  “Who is wise enough to understand why this has happened? ²  Who has a word from the Lord that can explain it? ³  Why does the land lie in ruins? Why is it as scorched as a desert through which no one travels?”

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.

Woe to the worthless shepherd who abandons the flock! May a sword fall on his arm and his right eye! May his arm wither completely away, and his right eye become completely blind!”

He said to them, “Come with me privately to an isolated place and rest a while” (for many were coming and going, and there was no time to eat).

Now the day began to draw to a close, ¹  so ²  the twelve came and said to Jesus, ³  “Send the crowd away, so they can go into the surrounding villages and countryside and find lodging ⁴  and food, because we are in an isolated place.” ⁵ 

¹ When ²  they journeyed from Elim, the entire company ³  of Israelites came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their exodus ⁴  from the land of Egypt.

As Aaron spoke ¹  to the whole community of the Israelites and they looked toward the desert, there the glory of the Lord ²  appeared ³  in the cloud,

¹ The whole community ²  of the Israelites traveled on their journey ³  from the Desert of Sin according to the Lord’s instruction, and they pitched camp in Rephidim. ⁴  Now ⁵  there was no water for the people to drink. ⁶ 

The land allotted to Joseph’s descendants extended from the Jordan at Jericho ¹  to the waters of Jericho to the east, through the desert and on up from Jericho into the hill country of Bethel. ² 

Beyond the Jordan east of Jericho ¹  they selected ²  Bezer in the desert on the plain belonging to the tribe of Reuben, Ramoth in Gilead belonging to the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan belonging to the tribe of Manasseh.

You have not abandoned your fellow Israelites ¹  this entire time, ²  right up to this very day. You have completed the task given you by the Lord your God. ³ 

Gideon said, “Since you will not help, ¹  after the Lord hands Zebah and Zalmunna over to me, I will thresh ²  your skin ³  with ⁴  desert thorns and briers.”

So they left and went to Ziph ahead of Saul. Now David and his men were in the desert of Maon, in the Arabah to the south of Jeshimon.

Saul camped by the road on the hill of Hakilah near Jeshimon, but David was staying in the desert. When he realized that Saul had come to the desert to find ¹  him,

The Lord said to him, “Go back the way you came and then head for the Desert of Damascus. Go and anoint Hazael king over Syria.

But the Babylonian army chased after the king. They caught up with him in the plains of Jericho, ¹  and his entire army deserted him.

When David ¹  went to Ziklag, the men of Manasseh who joined him were Adnach, Jozabad, Jediael, Michael, Jozabad, Elihu, and Zillethai, leaders of a thousand soldiers each in the tribe of Manasseh.

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.