Lexicon :: Strong's H4057 - miḏbār

“Go and announce directly to Jerusalem that this is what the LORD says:

I remember the loyalty of your youth,

your love as a bride —

how you followed me in the wilderness,

in a land not sown.

They stopped asking, “Where is the LORD

who brought us from the land of Egypt,

who led us through the wilderness,

through a land of deserts and ravines,

through a land of drought and darkness,[fn]

a land no one traveled through

and where no one lived? ”

a wild donkey at home[fn] in the wilderness.

She sniffs the wind in the heat of her desire.

Who can control her passion?

All who look for her will not become weary;

they will find her in her mating season.[fn]

Evil generation,

pay attention to the word of the LORD!

Have I been a wilderness to Israel

or a land of dense darkness?

Why do my people claim,

“We will go where we want;[fn]

we will no longer come to you”?

Look to the barren heights and see.

Where have you not been immoral?

You sat waiting for them beside the highways

like a nomad in the desert.

You have defiled the land

with your prostitution and wickedness.

“At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, ‘A searing wind blows from the barren heights in the wilderness on the way to my dear[fn] people. It comes not to winnow or to sift;

I looked, and the fertile field was a wilderness.

All its cities were torn down

because of the LORD

and his burning anger.

If only I had a traveler’s lodging place

in the wilderness,

I would abandon my people

and depart from them,

for they are all adulterers,

a solemn assembly of treacherous people.

I will raise weeping and a lament

over the mountains,

a dirge over the wilderness grazing land,

for they have been so scorched

that no one passes through.

The sound of cattle is no longer heard.

From the birds of the sky to the animals,

everything has fled ​— ​they have gone away.

Who is the person wise enough to understand this? Who has the LORD spoken to, that he may explain it? Why is the land destroyed and scorched like a wilderness, so no one can pass through?

“Egypt, Judah, Edom, the Ammonites, Moab, and all the inhabitants of the desert who clip the hair on their temples.[fn] All these nations are uncircumcised, and the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.’ ”

Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard;

they have trampled my plot of land.

They have turned my desirable plot

into a desolate wasteland.

Over all the barren heights in the wilderness

the destroyers have come,

for the LORD has a sword that devours

from one end of the earth to the other.

No one has peace.

I will scatter you[fn] like drifting chaff

before the desert wind.

He will be like a juniper in the Arabah;

he cannot see when good comes

but dwells in the parched places in the wilderness,

in a salt land where no one lives.

For this is what the LORD says concerning the house of the king of Judah:

“You are like Gilead to me,

or the summit of Lebanon,

but I will certainly turn you into a wilderness,

uninhabited cities.

For the land is full of adulterers;

the land mourns because of the curse,

and the grazing lands in the wilderness have dried up.

Their way of life[fn] has become evil,

and their power is not rightly used

all the kings of Arabia,

and all the kings of the mixed peoples who have settled in the desert;

This is what the LORD says:

The people who survived the sword

found favor in the wilderness.

When Israel went to find rest,

Flee! Save your lives!

Be like a juniper bush[fn] in the wilderness.

your mother will be utterly humiliated;

she who bore you will be put to shame.

Look! She will lag behind all[fn] the nations —

an arid wilderness, a desert.