'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)!’”

Then Jesus was led by the [Holy] Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

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].

Immediately the [Holy] Spirit forced Him out into the wilderness.

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.

The child continued to grow and to become strong in spirit, and he lived in the deserts until the day of his public appearance to Israel [as John the Baptist, the forerunner of the Messiah].

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.

But Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray [in seclusion].

Now He was [already] commanding the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For it had seized him [violently] many times; and he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.

“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.

For that reason Jesus no longer walked openly among the Jews, but left there and went to the district that borders on the uninhabited wilderness, to a town called Ephraim; and He stayed there with the disciples.

“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.

Then you are not [as I assumed] the Egyptian who some time ago stirred up a rebellion and led those 4,000 men of the Assassins out into 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,

Then the woman fled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God, so that she would be nourished there for a thousand two hundred and sixty days (forty-two months; three and one-half years).

But the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, so that she could fly into the wilderness to her place, where she was nourished for a time and times and half a time (three and one-half years), away from the presence of the serpent (Satan).

And the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness; and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was entirely covered with blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns.