'In the Wilderness' in the Bible

In those days John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the Wilderness of Judea [along the western side of the Dead Sea] and saying,

This is the one who was mentioned by the prophet Isaiah when he said,“The voice of one shouting in the wilderness,‘Prepare the road for the Lord,Make His highways straight (level, direct)!’”

As these men were going away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out in the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind [which is commonplace]?

So if they say to you, ‘Look! He is in the wilderness,’ do not go out there, or, ‘Look! He is in the inner rooms [of a house],’ do not believe it.

A voice of one shouting in the wilderness,‘Prepare the way of the Lord,Make His paths straight!’”

John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins [that is, requiring a change of one’s old way of thinking, turning away from sin and seeking God and His righteousness].

He was in the wilderness forty days being tempted [to do evil] by Satan; and He was with the wild animals, and the angels ministered continually to Him.

in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas [his son-in-law], the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness.

as it is written and forever remains written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,“The voice of one shouting in the wilderness,‘Prepare the way of the Lord,Make His paths straight.

for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And He ate nothing during those days, and when they ended, He was hungry.

“What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one which is lost, [searching] until he finds it?

He said, “I am the voice of one shouting in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.”

Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written [in Scripture], ‘He gave them bread out of heaven to eat.’”

Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.

“After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning thorn bush.

This man led them out [of Egypt] after performing wonders and signs in the land of Egypt and at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years.

This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness together with the Angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and who was with our fathers; and he received living oracles [divine words that still live] to be handed down to you.

But God turned away [from them] and handed them over to serve the host of heaven. As it is written and forever remains written in the book of the prophets, ‘It was not [really] to Me that you offered victims and sacrifices for forty years in the wilderness, was it, O house of Israel?

“Our fathers had the tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness, just as God directed Moses to make it according to the pattern which he had seen.

For a period of about forty years He put up with their behavior in the wilderness.

Nevertheless, God was not well-pleased with most of them, for they were scattered along the ground in the wilderness [because their lack of self-control led to disobedience which led to death].

Do not harden your hearts as [your fathers did] in the rebellion [of Israel at Meribah],On the day of testing in the wilderness,

Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest [of God, to know and experience it for ourselves], so that no one will fall by following the same example of disobedience [as those who died in the wilderness].

For you have not come [as did the Israelites in the wilderness] to a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to gloom and darkness and a raging windstorm,