Psalms 107:4

The voice of one who calls out, “Prepare the way of Yahweh in the wilderness! Make a level highway in the desert for our God.

The burden of the animals of the South. Through the land of trouble and anguish, of the lioness and the lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they carry their riches on the shoulders of young donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to an unprofitable people.

for when Jezebel cut off Yahweh’s prophets, Obadiah took one hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water.)

Leave out the court which is outside of the temple, and don’t measure it, for it has been given to the nations. They will tread the holy city under foot for forty-two months.

Keep me as the apple of your eye. Hide me under the shadow of your wings,

For Yahweh of Armies says: ‘For honor he has sent me to the nations which plundered you; for he who touches you touches the apple of his eye.

Or what woman, if she had ten drachma coins, if she lost one drachma coin, wouldn’t light a lamp, sweep the house, and seek diligently until she found it?

He carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness. I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet-colored beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns.

but Abraham gave gifts to the sons of Abraham’s concubines. While he still lived, he sent them away from Isaac his son, eastward, to the east country.

you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me,

Moses lifted up his hand, and struck the rock with his rod twice, and water came out abundantly. The congregation and their livestock drank.

Yahweh sent venomous snakes among the people, and they bit the people. Many people of Israel died.

The hand of Midian prevailed against Israel; and because of Midian the children of Israel made themselves the dens which are in the mountains, the caves, and the strongholds.

He came to a cave there, and camped there; and behold, Yahweh’s word came to him, and he said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

He pours contempt on princes, and loosens the belt of the strong.

who turned the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a spring of waters.

Keep my commandments and live! Guard my teaching as the apple of your eye.

who brings princes to nothing, who makes the judges of the earth meaningless.

They didn’t say, ‘Where is Yahweh 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 the shadow of death, through a land that no one passed through, and where no man lived?’

“What do you think? If a man has one hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine, go to the mountains, and seek that which has gone astray?

Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb. You shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink.” Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.

Your children shall be wanderers in the wilderness forty years, and shall bear your prostitution, until your dead bodies are consumed in the wilderness.

We traveled from Horeb and went through all that great and terrible wilderness which you saw, by the way to the hill country of the Amorites, as Yahweh our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh Barnea.

He found him in a desert land, in the waste howling wilderness. He surrounded him. He cared for him. He kept him as the apple of his eye.

David therefore departed from there, and escaped to Adullam’s cave. When his brothers and all his father’s house heard it, they went down there to him.

I have gone astray like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I don’t forget your commandments.

to him who led his people through the wilderness; for his loving kindness endures forever:

Look on my right, and see; for there is no one who is concerned for me. Refuge has fled from me. No one cares for my soul.

There will be a highway for the remnant that is left of his people from Assyria, like there was for Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.

“Hear Yahweh’s word, you nations, and declare it in the distant islands. Say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd does his flock.’

For the day is near, even Yahweh’s day is near. It will be a day of clouds, a time of the nations.

“This is the interpretation, O king, and it is the decree of the Most High, which has come on my lord the king:

I heard the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand to heaven, and swore by him who lives forever that it will be for a time, times, and a half; and when they have finished breaking in pieces the power of the holy people, all these things will be finished.

“Therefore behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.

I knew you in the wilderness, in the land of great drought.

For you were going astray like sheep; but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy one thousand two hundred sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.”

Therefore he called that place Beersheba, because they both swore an oath there.

Israel traveled with all that he had, and came to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices to the God of his father, Isaac.

The days in which we came from Kadesh Barnea until we had come over the brook Zered were thirty-eight years: until all the generation of the men of war were consumed from the middle of the camp, as Yahweh swore to them.

He will keep the feet of his holy ones, but the wicked will be put to silence in darkness; for no man will prevail by strength.

When the men of Israel saw that they were in trouble (for the people were distressed), then the people hid themselves in caves, in thickets, in rocks, in tombs, and in pits.

The Ziphites came to Saul to Gibeah, saying, “Doesn’t David hide himself in the hill of Hachilah, which is before the desert?”

Wasn’t it told my lord what I did when Jezebel killed Yahweh’s prophets, how I hid one hundred men of Yahweh’s prophets with fifty to a cave, and fed them with bread and water?

He removes the speech of those who are trusted, and takes away the understanding of the elders.

The light will be dark in his tent. His lamp above him will be put out.

no evil shall happen to you, neither shall any plague come near your dwelling.

he led them also by a straight way, that they might go to a city to live in.

There he makes the hungry live, that they may prepare a city to live in,

With my whole heart, I have sought you. Don’t let me wander from your commandments.

Who is this who comes up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved? Under the apple tree I aroused you. There your mother conceived you. There she was in labor and bore you.

He will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arm, and carry them in his bosom. He will gently lead those who have their young.

The righteous perish, and no one lays it to heart. Merciful men are taken away, and no one considers that the righteous is taken away from the evil.

Go through, go through the gates! Prepare the way of the people! Build up, build up the highway! Gather out the stones! Lift up a banner for the peoples.

For the shepherds have become brutish, and have not inquired of Yahweh. Therefore they have not prospered, and all their flocks have scattered.

They will come with weeping. I will lead them with petitions. I will cause them to walk by rivers of waters, in a straight way in which they won’t stumble; for I am a father to Israel. Ephraim is my firstborn.

Now the pit in which Ishmael cast all the dead bodies of the men whom he had killed, by the side of Gedaliah (this was that which Asa the king had made for fear of Baasha king of Israel), Ishmael the son of Nethaniah filled it with those who were killed.

But those of those who escape, they will escape and will be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them moaning, everyone in his iniquity.

“Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: ‘Because you have forgotten me, and cast me behind your back, therefore you also bear your lewdness and your prostitution.’ ”

Rather, go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Every valley will be filled. Every mountain and hill will be brought low. The crooked will become straight, and the rough ways smooth.

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.”

I have other sheep, which are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice. They will become one flock with one shepherd.

know his will, and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law,

Much in every way! Because first of all, they were entrusted with the revelations of God.

His tail drew one third of the stars of the sky, and threw them to the earth. The dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child.

Two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, so that she might be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.

A mouth speaking great things and blasphemy was given to him. Authority to make war for forty-two months was given to him.

Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread and a container of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder; and gave her the child, and sent her away. She departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.

Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel, and he made them wander back and forth in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation who had done evil in Yahweh’s sight was consumed.

In the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, Moses spoke to the children of Israel according to all that Yahweh had given him in commandment to them,

who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with venomous snakes and scorpions, and thirsty ground where there was no water; who poured water for you out of the rock of flint;

“Now, behold, Yahweh has kept me alive, as he spoke, these forty-five years, from the time that Yahweh spoke this word to Moses, while Israel walked in the wilderness. Now, behold, I am eighty-five years old, today.

You will know that your tent is in peace. You will visit your fold, and will miss nothing.

He takes away understanding from the chiefs of the people of the earth, and causes them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way.

Therefore he consumed their days in vanity, and their years in terror.

He pours contempt on princes, and causes them to wander in a trackless waste.

I will hurry, and not delay, to obey your commandments.

The labor of fools wearies every one of them; for he doesn’t know how to go to the city.

I will make all my mountains a road, and my highways shall be exalted.

My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and on every high hill. Yes, my sheep were scattered on all the surface of the earth. There was no one who searched or sought.”

As a shepherd seeks out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered abroad, so I will seek out my sheep. I will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.

However with most of them, God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

of whom the world was not worthy—wandering in deserts, mountains, caves, and the holes of the earth.

The woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that there they may nourish her one thousand two hundred sixty days.