The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

"He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness; he encircled him, he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.

In the wilderness, Beth-arabah, Middin, Secacah, Nibshan, the City of Salt, and Engedi: six cities with their villages.

The caravans turn aside from their course; they go up into the waste and perish.

Behold, like wild donkeys in the desert the poorgo out to their toil, seeking game; the wasteland yields food for their children.

Through want and hard hunger they gnaw the dry ground by night in waste and desolation;

Yet they sinned still more against him, rebelling against the Most High in the desert.

I am like a desert owl of the wilderness, like an owl of the waste places;

Let the desert and its cities lift up their voice, the villages that Kedar inhabits; let the habitants of Sela sing for joy, let them shout from the top of the mountains.

They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts; he made water flow for them from the rock; he split the rock and the water gushed out.

a wild donkey used to the wilderness, in her heat sniffing the wind! Who can restrain her lust? None who seek her need weary themselves; in her month they will find her.

Even jackals offer the breast; they nurse their young, but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.

but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert."