'Wilderness' in the Bible

“Go and proclaim in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord,“I remember concerning you the devotion of your youth,The love of your betrothals,Your following after Me in the wilderness,Through a land not sown.

“They did not say, ‘Where is the LordWho brought us up out of the land of Egypt,Who led us through the wilderness,Through a land of deserts and of pits,Through a land of drought and of deep darkness,Through a land that no one crossedAnd where no man dwelt?’

A wild donkey accustomed to the wilderness,That sniffs the wind in her passion.In the time of her heat who can turn her away?All who seek her will not become weary;In her month they will find her.

“O generation, heed the word of the Lord.Have I been a wilderness to Israel,Or a land of thick darkness?Why do My people say, ‘We are free to roam;We will no longer come to You’?

In that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, “A scorching wind from the bare heights in the wilderness in the direction of the daughter of My people—not to winnow and not to cleanse,

I looked, and behold, the fruitful land was a wilderness,And all its cities were pulled downBefore the Lord, before His fierce anger.

“For the mountains I will take up a weeping and wailing,And for the pastures of the wilderness a dirge,Because they are laid waste so that no one passes through,And the lowing of the cattle is not heard;Both the birds of the sky and the beasts have fled; they are gone.

“Many shepherds have ruined My vineyard,They have trampled down My field;They have made My pleasant fieldA desolate wilderness.

“On all the bare heights in the wildernessDestroyers have come,For a sword of the Lord is devouringFrom one end of the land even to the other;There is no peace for anyone.

“For he will be like a bush in the desertAnd will not see when prosperity comes,But will live in stony wastes in the wilderness,A land of salt without inhabitant.

For thus says the Lord concerning the house of the king of Judah:“You are like Gilead to Me,Like the summit of Lebanon;Yet most assuredly I will make you like a wilderness,Like cities which are not inhabited.

For the land is full of adulterers;For the land mourns because of the curse.The pastures of the wilderness have dried up.Their course also is evilAnd their might is not right.

Thus says the Lord,“The people who survived the swordFound grace in the wilderness—Israel, when it went to find its rest.”

“Flee, save your lives,That you may be like a juniper in the wilderness.

Your mother will be greatly ashamed,She who gave you birth will be humiliated.Behold, she will be the least of the nations,A wilderness, a parched land and a desert.