And you shall not glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather its fallen grapes; you shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger. I am the Lord your God.

Then Balaam said to Balak, “Stand beside your burnt offering and I will go. Perhaps the Lord will come to meet me; and whatever He shows me I will tell you.” So he went to a desolate hill.

“Take millstones [as a female slave does] and grind meal;
Remove your veil, strip off the skirt,
Uncover the leg, cross the rivers [at the command of your captors].

Saying to those who are bound and captured, ‘Go forth,’
And to those who are in [spiritual] darkness, ‘Show yourselves [come into the light of the Savior].’
They will feed along the roads [on which they travel],
And their pastures will be on all the bare heights.

The Lord has bared His holy arm (His infinite power)
Before the eyes of all the nations [revealing Himself as the One by Whom Israel is redeemed from captivity],
That all the ends of the earth may see
The salvation of our God.

The voice of the Lord makes the doe labor and give birth
And strips the forests bare;
And in His temple all are saying, “Glory!”

“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).

A voice is heard on the barren heights,
The weeping and pleading of the children of Israel,
Because they have lost their way,
They have [deliberately] forgotten the Lord their God.

In that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, “A scorching wind from the barren heights in the wilderness [comes at My command] against the daughter of My people—not [a wind] to winnow and not to cleanse [from chaff, as when threshing, but]

‘Cut off your hair [your crown, O Jerusalem] and throw it away,
And take up a mournful cry on the barren heights,
For the Lord has rejected and abandoned
The generation of His wrath.’

“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.

“And the wild donkeys stand on the barren heights;
They pant for air like jackals,
Their eyesight fails
Because there is no grass.

“But I have stripped Esau (Edom) bare;
I have uncovered his hiding places
And he cannot hide himself.
His descendants have been destroyed along with his brothers (relatives) and his neighbors;
And he is no more.

Thus says the Lord of hosts,

“The broad wall of Babylon will be completely overthrown and the foundations razed
And her high gates will be set on fire;
The peoples will labor in vain,
And the nations become exhausted [only] for fire [that will destroy their work].”

I made you (Israel) multiply like plants [which grow] in the field, and you grew up and became tall and you reached the age for [wearing] fine jewelry; your breasts were formed and your hair had grown, yet you were naked and bare.

And in all your repulsive acts and prostitutions (idolatrous immoralities) you did not [pause to] remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, squirming in your [newborn] blood.

I will also hand you over to your lovers, and they will tear down your shrines, demolish your high places, strip you of your clothing, take away your jewels, and they will leave you naked and bare.

They will deal with you in hatred, take all your property, and leave you naked and bare. And the nakedness of your depravity will be uncovered, both your lewdness and your obscene practices.

“For her blood [that she has shed] remains in her midst;
She put it on the bare rock;
She did not pour it on the ground
To cover it with dust.

“That it may cause wrath to come up to take vengeance,
I have put her blood [guilt for her children sacrificed to Molech] on the bare rock,
That it may not be covered.”

They will destroy the walls of Tyre and break down her towers; and I will scrape her dust and debris from her and make her as bare as [the top of] a rock.

I will make you [Tyre] a bare rock; you will be a dry place on which to spread nets. You will never be rebuilt, for I the Lord have spoken,” says the Lord God.

It has made My vine (My people) a waste and object of horror,
And splintered and broken My fig tree.
It has stripped them completely bare and thrown them away;
Their branches have become white.

Therefore I [the Lord] shall make Samaria a heap of ruins [and of stones and arable land] in the open country,
A place for planting vineyards;
And I will pour her stones down into the ravine
And lay bare her foundations.

Your bow was made bare;
The rods of chastisement were sworn. Selah (pause, calmly think of that).
You split the earth with rivers [bringing waters to dry places].

You went forth for the salvation of Your people,
For the salvation and rescue of Your anointed [people Israel].
You struck the head from the house of the wicked
To lay him open from the thigh to the neck. Selah (pause, and calmly think of that).

Flocks will lie down in her midst,
All the animals which range in herds;
Both the pelican and the short-eared owl
Will roost on the top of Nineveh’s pillars.
Birds will sing in the window,
Desolation will be on the threshold;
For He has uncovered the cedar paneling.

For my eyes are toward You, O God, the Lord;
In You I take refuge; do not pour out my life nor leave me defenseless.

Lift up a signal banner on the bare mountain,
Summon them [the Medes and Persians] with a loud voice,
Wave the [beckoning] hand so that they may enter the doorways of the [Babylonian] nobles.

Tremble, you women who are carefree;
Tremble with fear, you complacent ones!
Strip, undress and wear sackcloth on your waist [in grief],

“Who can open the doors (jaws) of his face?
Around his [open jaws and] teeth there is terror.

“I will open rivers on the barren heights
And springs in the midst of the valleys;
I will make the wilderness a reed-pool of water
And the dry land springs of water.

Then the stream beds of the waters appeared,
And the foundations of the world were laid bare
At Your rebuke, O Lord,
At the blast of the breath of Your nostrils.