"Go and proclaim in the ears of Jerusalem, {saying}, 'Thus says Yahweh, "I remember [concerning] you the loyal love of your childhood, the love of your betrothal-time, your going after me in the desert, in [the] land not sown.

And they did not say, 'Where [is] Yahweh, the one who brought us up from the land of Egypt, the one who led us in the desert, in a land of desert plains and gorges, in a land of dryness and deep darkness, in a land {that no one passes through}, and no human lives there?'

Or [you have the untamed and reckless nature of] a wild donkey accustomed to the wilderness,
That sniffs the wind in her passion [for the scent of a mate].
In her mating season who can restrain her?
No males seeking her need to weary themselves;
In her month they will find her [looking for them].

O generation, you see the word of Yahweh. Have I been a desert to Israel? Or a land of great darkness? Why do my people say, 'We roam about freely, we will not come again to you'?

“Lift up your eyes to the barren heights and see;
Where have you not been violated?
You sat by the road waiting [eagerly] for them [those man-made gods]
Like an Arab [tribesman who waits to attack] in the desert,
And you have desecrated the land
With your [vile] prostitution and your wickedness (disobedience to God).

At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, "{A hot wind from the barren heights} in the desert, {in the direction of} the daughter of my people, not to winnow and not to cleanse,

I looked, and behold, the fertile land was a wilderness,
And all its cities were pulled down
Before the [presence of the] Lord, before His fierce anger.

For thus said Jehovah, All the earth shall be a desert; and I will not make a completion.

Therefore a lion from the forest will kill them,
A wolf of the deserts will destroy them,
A leopard is watching their cities.
Everyone who goes out of them shall be torn in pieces,
Because their transgressions are many,
Their desertions of faith are countless.

{Oh that I had} in the desert a place of overnight lodging for travelers, that I may leave my people and go from them, for all of them [are] adulterers, a band of traitors.

For the mountains I lift up weeping and wailing, and for [the] pastures of [the] desert a lament, because they are laid waste so that no man passes through. And [the] sounds of cattle are not heard, from [the] birds of heaven to [the] animals they have fled, they are gone.

Who [is] the wise man that can understand this? And to whom has the mouth of Yahweh spoken, so that he may declare it? Why is the land destroyed? It is laid waste like the desert so that no one passes through."

Egypt and Judah, and Edom and the sons of Ammon, and Moab and all those who live in the desert who clip off the hair on their temples; for all these nations are uncircumcised (sinful, impure), and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.”

Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard, they have trampled down my plot of land. They have made {my pleasant field} like the desert of desolation.

“Destroyers have come
On all the caravan roads in the desert,
For the sword of the Lord (Babylon) is devouring
From one end of the land even to the other;
No one has peace or a way of escape.

“Therefore I will scatter you like drifting straw
[Driven away] by the desert wind.

For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.

For thus says Yahweh concerning the house of the king of Judah, "You [are like] Gilead to me, [like] the head of the Lebanon. {Surely} I will make you a desert, [like] cities [that] are not inhabited.

For the land is full [of] adulterers; for the land mourns because of a curse. [The] pastures of [the] desert are dry, and their evil has been their way of running, and their power [is] not right.

Lo, I will send out, and call for all the people that dwell in the North, sayeth the LORD, and will prepare Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon my servant, and will bring them upon this land, and upon all that dwell therein, and upon all the people that are about them, and will utterly root them out. I will make of them a wilderness, a mockage, and a continual desert.

the people of Dedan, Tema, Buz, all the desert people who cut their hair short at the temples;

And all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the mingled people that dwell in the desert,

Thus says Yahweh: "[The] people of [the] survivors of the sword found grace in the desert; Israel going to find their rest."

And fields shall be bought in this land of which you say, It is a desert without man or beast; it is given into the hand of the Chaldeans.

Yea, land shall be bought for money, and evidences made thereupon and sealed before witnesses in the country of Benjamin, and round about Jerusalem: in the cities of Judah; in the cities that are upon the mountains; and in them that lie beneath; yea, and in the cities that are in the desert. For I will bring their prisoners hither again, sayeth the LORD.'"

So says Jehovah of Hosts: Again in this place which is a desert without man and without beast, and in all its cities, there shall be a home of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down.

in the cities upon the mountains; and in the cities that lie upon the plain and in the desert. In the land of Benjamin, in the fields of Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah shall the sheep be numbered again, under the hand of him that telleth them, sayeth the LORD.

Behold, I will command, says Jehovah, and cause them to return to this city. And they shall fight against it and capture it, and burn it with fire. And I will make the cities of Judah a desert without a soul to live in it.

Then said Jeremiah, It is false; I desert not to the Chaldeans. But he hearkened not to him: so Irijah took Jeremiah, and brought him to the princes.

And it will be as Zedekiah king of Judah saw them, and all the men of war, and they will flee and go forth at night from the city the way of the king's garden, in the gate between the two walls: and he will go forth the way of the desert

What do I see?" says the Lord. "The soldiers are terrified. They are retreating. They have been defeated. They are overcome with terror; they desert quickly without looking back.

O daughter dwelling in Egypt, get ready to go into captivity. For Noph shall be waste and a desert without inhabitant.

Flee! Save your life! {For} you must not be like the juniper tree in the desert.

Give wings to Moab so that it may flee and get away; for its cities shall be a desert, without an inhabitant in them.

For why? I have sworn by myself, sayeth the LORD, that Bozrah shall become a wilderness; an open shame; a laughingstock and cursing; and her cities shall be a continual desert.

The Lord spoke about Kedar and the kingdoms of Hazor that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon conquered. "Army of Babylon, go and attack Kedar. Lay waste those who live in the eastern desert.

“Flee, run far away! Dwell in the depths [of the desert],
O inhabitants of Hazor,” says the Lord,
“For Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has planned a course of action against you
And devised a scheme against you.

Their camels will be taken as plunder. Their vast herds will be taken as spoil. I will scatter to the four winds those desert peoples who cut their hair short at the temples. I will bring disaster against them from every direction," says the Lord.

For out of the north a nation comes up against her, which shall make her land a desert, and none shall dwell in it. They shall flee, they shall depart, both man and beast.

Your mother shall be sore confounded; she that bare you shall be ashamed: behold, the hindermost of the nations shall be a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert.

Therefore the wild beasts of the desert with the wild beasts of the islands shall dwell there, and the owls shall dwell therein: and it shall be no more inhabited for ever; neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation.

Therefore hear the counsel of Jehovah that He has taken against Babylon; and His purposes which He has purposed against the land of the Chaldeans. Surely the least of the flock shall drag them; surely He shall make their dwelling a desert with them.

And the land shall tremble and writhe. For every purpose of Jehovah shall be done against Babylon, to make the land of Babylon a desert without inhabitant.

Her cities are become a desolation, a dry land, and a desert, a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby.