“Go and proclaim in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, ‘This is what the Lord says: “I remember regarding you the devotion of your youth, Your love when you were a bride, Your following after Me in the wilderness, Through a land not sown.

They did not say, ‘Where is the Lord Who 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 crossed And where no person lived?’

A wild donkey accustomed to the wilderness, That sniffs the wind in her passion. Who can turn her away in her mating season? None who seek her will grow weary; In her month they will find her.

You generation, look to 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’?

At 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 down Before the Lord, before His fierce anger.

“I will take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains, And for the pastures of the wilderness a song of mourning, Because they are laid waste so that no one passes through, And the sound of the livestock is not heard; Both the birds of the sky and the animals have fled; they are gone.

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

On all the bare heights in the wilderness Destroyers have come, For the sword of the Lord is devouring From one end of the land even to the other; There is no peace for anyone.

For he will be like a bush in the desert, And will not see when prosperity comes, But will live in stony wastes in the wilderness, A land of salt that is not inhabited.

For this is what the Lord says 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 a wilderness, Cities that 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 is evil And their might is not right.

This is what the Lord says: “The people who survived the sword Found grace in the wilderness— Israel, when it went to find its rest.”

Flee, save yourselves, So 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 dry land and a desert.