I will make it a wasteland; no one will prune its vines or hoe its ground, ¹  and thorns and briers will grow there. I will order the clouds not to drop any rain on it.

Night and day it will burn; ¹  its smoke will ascend continually. Generation after generation it will be a wasteland and no one will ever pass through it again.

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.

“‘But when the seventy years are over, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation ¹  for their sins. I will make the land of Babylon ²  an everlasting ruin. ³  I, the Lord, affirm it! ⁴ 

The earth will tremble and writhe in agony. ¹  For the Lord will carry out his plan. He plans to make the land of Babylonia ²  a wasteland where no one lives. ³ 

Then say, ‘O Lord, you have announced that you will destroy this place so that no people or animals live in it any longer. Certainly it will lie desolate forever!’

The land of Egypt will become a desolate ruin. Then they will know that I am the Lord. Because he said, “The Nile is mine and I made it,”

He deprives the leaders of the earth ¹  of their understanding; ²  he makes them wander in a trackless desert waste. ³ 

O God, when you lead your people into battle, ¹  when you march through the desert, ²  (Selah)

How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness, and insulted him ¹  in the desert!

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

“I looked at the land and saw ¹  that it was an empty wasteland. ²  I looked up at the sky, and its light had vanished.

I will remove the one from the north ¹  far from you. I will drive him out to a dry and desolate place. Those in front will be driven eastward into the Dead Sea, ²  and those in back westward into the Mediterranean Sea. ³  His stench will rise up as a foul smell.” ⁴  Indeed, the Lord ⁵  has accomplished great things.

The goat is to bear on itself all their iniquities into an inaccessible land, ¹  so he is to send the goat away ²  in the wilderness.

and who brought you through the great, fearful desert of venomous serpents ¹  and scorpions, an arid place with no water. He made water flow ²  from a flint rock and

So Joab and Abishai chased Abner. At sunset they came to the hill of Ammah near Giah on the way to the wilderness of Gibeon.

I replied, “How long, sovereign master?” He said, “Until cities are in ruins and unpopulated, and houses are uninhabited, and the land is ruined and devastated,

Look, the Lord is ready to devastate the earth and leave it in ruins; he will mar its surface and scatter its inhabitants.

For the fortress is neglected; the once-crowded ¹  city is abandoned. Hill ²  and watchtower are permanently uninhabited. ³  Wild donkeys love to go there, and flocks graze there. ⁴