'Land' in the Bible

The word about the waste land. As storm-winds in the South go rushing through, it comes from the waste land, from the land greatly to be feared.

Give water to him who is in need of water; give bread, O men of the land of Tema, to those in flight.

The word about Tyre. Let a cry of sorrow go up, O ships of Tarshish, because your strong place is made waste; on the way back from the land of Kittim the news is given to them.

Send out a cry of grief, you men of the sea-land, traders of Zidon, who go over the sea, whose representatives are on great waters;

Go over to Tarshish; give cries of sorrow, O men of the sea-land.

By whom was this purposed against Tyre, the crowning town, whose traders are chiefs, whose business men are honoured in the land?

Let your land be worked with the plough, O daughter of Tarshish; there is no longer any harbour.

And her goods and her trade will be holy to the Lord: they will not be kept back or stored up; for her produce will be for those living in the Lord's land, to give them food for their needs, and fair clothing.

There is a crying in the streets because of the wine; there is an end of all delight, the joy of the land is gone.

In that day will this song be made in the land of Judah: We have a strong town; he will make salvation our walls and towers.

Even if you are kind to the evil-doer, he will not go after righteousness; even in the land of the upright he will still go on in his wrongdoing, and will not see the glory of the Lord.

You have made the nation great, O Lord, you have made it great; glory is yours: you have made wide the limits of the land.

For the strong town is without men, an unpeopled living-place; and she has become a waste land: there the young ox will take his rest, and its branches will be food for him.

And it will be in that day that a great horn will be sounded; and those who were wandering in the land of Assyria, and those who had been sent away into the land of Egypt, will come; and they will give worship to the Lord in the holy mountain at Jerusalem.

And now, take care that you do not make sport of him, or your bands will be made strong; for I have had word from the Lord, the Lord of armies, of an end, of a complete end, which is to come on all the land.

The word about the Beasts of the South. Through the land of trouble and grief, the land of the she-lion and the voice of the lion, of the snake and the burning winged snake, they take their wealth on the backs of young asses, and their stores on camels, to a people in whom is no profit.

And a man will be as a safe place from the wind, and a cover from the storm; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shade of a great rock in a waste land.

And for the land of my people, where thorns will come up; even for all the houses of joy in the glad town.

Till the spirit comes on us from on high, and the waste land becomes a fertile field, and the fertile field is changed into a wood.

Then in the waste land there will be an upright rule, and righteousness will have its place in the fertile field.

Your eyes will see the king in his glory: they will be looking on a far-stretching land.

The sword of the Lord is full of blood, it is fat with the best of the meat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the best parts of the sheep: for the Lord has a feast in Bozrah, and much cattle will be put to death in the land of Edom.

And its streams will be turned into boiling oil, and its dust into burning stone, and all the land will be on fire.

But the birds of the waste land will have their place there; it will be a heritage for the bittern and the raven: and it will be measured out with line and weight as a waste land.

The waste land and the dry places will be glad; the lowland will have joy and be full of flowers.

Then will the feeble-footed be jumping like a roe, and the voice which was stopped will be loud in song: for in the waste land streams will be bursting out, and waters in the dry places.

And the burning sand will become a pool, and the dry earth springs of waters: the fields where the sheep take their food will become wet land, and water-plants will take the place of grass.

And have I now come to send destruction on this land without the Lord's authority? It was the Lord himself who said to me, Go up against this land and make it waste.

Till I come and take you away to a land like yours, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vine-gardens.

Give no attention to Hezekiah when he says to you, The Lord will keep us safe. Has any one of the gods of the nations kept his land from falling into the hands of the king of Assyria?

See, I will put a spirit into him, and bad news will come to his ears, and he will go back to his land; and there I will have him put to death.

And it came about, when he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer put him to death with the sword, and they went in flight into the land of Ararat. And Esar-haddon, his son, became king in his place.

I said, I will not see the Lord, even the Lord in the land of the living: I will not see man again or those living in the world.

A voice of one crying, Make ready in the waste land the way of the Lord, make level in the lowland a highway for our God.

I will make rivers on the dry mountain-tops, and fountains in the valleys: I will make the waste land a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.

I will put in the waste land the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive-tree; and in the lowland will be planted the fir-tree, the plane, and the cypress together:

Let the waste land and its flocks be glad, the tent-circles of Kedar; let the people of the rock give a glad cry, from the top of the mountains let them make a sound of joy.

I will make waste mountains and hills, drying up all their plants; and I will make rivers dry, and pools dry land.

See, I am doing a new thing; now it is starting; will you not take note of it? I will even make a way in the waste land, and rivers in the dry country.

The beasts of the field will give me honour, the jackals and the ostriches: because I send out waters in the waste land, and rivers in the dry country, to give drink to the people whom I have taken for myself:

For I will send water on the land needing it, and streams on the dry earth: I will let my spirit come down on your seed, and my blessing on your offspring.

I have not given my word in secret, in a place in the underworld; I did not say to the seed of Jacob, Go into a waste land to make request of me: I the Lord say what is true, my word is righteousness.

This is the word of the Lord: I have given ear to you at a good time, and I have been your helper in a day of salvation: and I will keep you safe, and will make you a glory for the people, putting the land in order, and giving them the heritages which now are waste;

See, these are coming from far; and these from the north and the west; and these from the land of Sinim.

For though the waste places of your land have been given to destruction, now you will not be wide enough for your people, and those who made you waste will be far away.

Why, then, when I came, was there no man? and no one to give answer to my voice? has my hand become feeble, so that it is unable to take up your cause? or have I no power to make you free? See, at my word the sea becomes dry, I make the rivers a waste land: their fish are dead for need of water, and make an evil smell.

For the Lord has given comfort to Zion: he has made glad all her broken walls; making her waste places like Eden, and changing her dry land into the garden of the Lord; joy and delight will be there, praise and the sound of melody.

They took away from him help and right, and who gave a thought to his fate? for he was cut off from the land of the living: he came to his death for the sin of my people.

Your false gods will not keep you safe in answer to your cry; but the wind will take them, they will be gone like a breath: but he who puts his hope in me will take the land, and will have my holy mountain as his heritage.

Violent acts will no longer be seen in your land, wasting or destruction in your limits; but your walls will be named, Salvation, and your doors Praise.

Your people will all be upright, the land will be their heritage for ever; the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, to be for my glory.

As they had twice as much grief, and marks of shame were their heritage, so in their land they will be rewarded twice over, and will have eternal joy.

You will not now be named, She who is given up; and your land will no longer be named, The waste land: but you will have the name, My pleasure is in her, and your land will be named, Married: for the Lord has pleasure in you, and your land will be married.

He who made them go through the deep waters, like a horse in the waste land?

And Sharon will be a grass-land for the flocks, and the valley of Achor a resting-place for the herds: for my people whose hearts have been turned back to me.

When has such a story come to men's ears? who has seen such things? will a land come to birth in one day? will a nation be given birth in a minute? For when Zion's pains came on her, she gave birth to her children straight away.

The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin:

Then the Lord said to me, Out of the north evil will come, bursting out on all the people of the land.

For see, this day have I made you a walled town, and an iron pillar, and walls of brass, against all the land, against the kings of Judah, against its captains, against its priests, and against the people of the land.

Go and say in the ears of Jerusalem, The Lord says, I still keep the memory of your kind heart when you were young, and your love when you became my bride; how you went after me in the waste of sand, in an unplanted land.

And they never said, Where is the Lord, who took us up out of the land of Egypt; who was our guide through the waste of sand, through an unplanted land full of deep holes, through a dry land of deep shade, which no one went through and where no man was living?

And I took you into a fertile land, where you were living on its fruit and its wealth; but when you came in, you made my land unclean, and made my heritage a disgusting thing.

The young lions have made an outcry against him with a loud voice: they have made his land waste; his towns are burned up, with no one living in them.

An untrained ass, used to the waste land, breathing up the wind in her desire; at her time, who is able to send her away? all those who are looking for her will have no need to make themselves tired; in her month they will get her.

O generation, see the word of the Lord. Have I been a waste land to Israel? or a land of dark night? why do my people say, We have got loose, we will not come to you again?

They say, If a man puts away his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man's, will he go back to her again? will not that land have been made unclean? but though you have been acting like a loose woman with a number of lovers, will you now come back to me? says the Lord.

Let your eyes be lifted up to the open hilltops, and see; where have you not been taken by your lovers? You have been seated waiting for them by the wayside like an Arabian in the waste land; you have made the land unclean with your loose ways and your evil-doing.

So that through all her loose behaviour the land became unclean, and she was untrue, giving herself to stones and trees.

And it will come about, when your numbers are increased in the land, in those days, says the Lord, that they will no longer say, The ark of the agreement of the Lord: it will not come into their minds, they will not have any memory of it, or be conscious of the loss of it, and it will not be made again.

In those days the family of Judah will go with the family of Israel, and they will come together out of the land of the north into the land which I gave for a heritage to your fathers.

But I said, How am I to put you among the children, and give you a desired land, a heritage of glory among the armies of the nations? and I said, You are to say to me, My father; and not be turned away from me.

For this is what the Lord says to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem: Get your unworked land ploughed up, do not put in your seeds among thorns.

Say openly in Judah, give it out in Jerusalem, and say, Let the horn be sounded in the land: crying out in a loud voice, Come together, and let us go into the walled towns.

A lion has gone up from his secret place in the woods, and one who makes waste the nations is on his way; he has gone out from his place, to make your land unpeopled, so that your towns will be made waste, with no man living in them.

At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, A burning wind from the open hilltops in the waste land is blowing on the daughter of my people, not for separating or cleaning the grain;

News is given of destruction on destruction; all the land is made waste: suddenly my tents, straight away my curtains, are made waste.

For this is what the Lord has said: All the land will become a waste; I will make destruction complete.

All the land is in flight because of the noise of the horsemen and the bowmen; they have taken cover in the woodland and up on the rocks: every town has been given up, not a man is living in them.

And so a lion from the woods will put them to death, a wolf of the waste land will make them waste, a leopard will keep watch on their towns, and everyone who goes out from them will be food for the beasts; because of the great number of their sins and the increase of their wrongdoing.

And it will come about, when you say, Why has the Lord our God done all these things to us? that you will say to them, As you gave me up, making yourselves servants to strange gods in your land, so will you be servants to strange men in a land which is not yours.

A thing of wonder and fear has come about in the land;

Undergo teaching, O Jerusalem, or my soul will be turned away from you, and I will make you a waste, an unpeopled land.

And their houses will be handed over to others, their fields and their wives together: for my hand will be stretched out against the people of the land, says the Lord.

Then I will let you go on living in this place, in the land which I gave to your fathers in the past and for ever.

And in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, I will put an end to the laughing voices, the voice of joy and the voice of the newly-married man and the voice of the bride: for the land will become a waste.

The loud breathing of the horses comes to our ears from Dan: at the sound of the outcry of his war-horses, all the land is shaking with fear; for they have come, and have made a meal of the land and everything in it; the town and the people living in it.

The voice of the cry of the daughter of my people comes from a far land: Is the Lord not in Zion? is not her King in her? Why have they made me angry with their images and their strange gods which are no gods?

If only I had in the waste land a night's resting-place for travellers, so that I might go away, far from my people! for they are all untrue, a band of false men.

Their tongues are bent like a bow to send out false words: they have become strong in the land, but not for good faith: they go on from evil to evil, and they have no knowledge of me, says the Lord.

Give yourselves to weeping, crying out in sorrow for the mountains; and for the fields of the waste land send up a song of grief, because they are burned up, so that no one goes through; there is no sound of cattle; the bird of the heavens and the beast are in flight and are gone.

Who is the wise man able to see this? who is he to whom the word of the Lord has come, so that he may make it clear? why is the land given to destruction and burned up like a waste place, so that no one goes through?

For a sound of weeping goes up from Zion, a cry, How has destruction come on us? we are overcome with shame because we have gone away from our land; he has sent us out from our house.

On Egypt and on Judah and on Edom and on the children of Ammon and on Moab and on all who have the ends of their hair cut, who are living in the waste land: for all these nations and all the people of Israel are without circumcision in their hearts.

Get your goods together and go out of the land, O you who are shut up in the walled town.

For the Lord has said, I will send the people in flight like a stone from the land at this time, troubling them so that they will be conscious of it.

To the order which I gave your fathers on the day when I took them out of the land of Egypt, out of the oven of iron, saying, Give ear to my voice, and do all the orders I have given you: so you will be my people, and I will be your God:

So that I may give effect to the oath which I made to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey as at this day. And I said in answer, So be it, O Lord.

For I gave certain witness to your fathers on the day when I took them up out of the land of Egypt, and even to this day, getting up early and witnessing and saying, Give ear to my voice.

But I was like a gentle lamb taken to be put to death; I had no thought that they were designing evil against me, saying, Come and let us make trouble his food, cutting him off from the land of the living, so that there may be no more memory of his name.

How long will the land have grief, and the plants of all the land be dry? because of the sins of the people living in it, destruction has overtaken the beasts and the birds; because they said, God does not see our ways.