The Spirit Turns Wilderness into Fruitfulness

⁹ Stand up, you complacent women; listen to me. Give ear to my word, you overconfident daughters.

¹⁰ In a little more than a year you will tremble, O secure ones. For the grape harvest will fail and the fruit harvest will not arrive.

¹¹ Shudder, you ladies of leisure; tremble, you daughters of complacency. Strip yourselves bare and put sackcloth around your waists.

¹² Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vines,

¹³ and for the land of my people, overgrown with thorns and briers—even for every house of merriment in this city of revelry.

¹⁴ For the palace will be forsaken, the busy city abandoned. The hill and the watchtower will become caves forever—the delight of wild donkeys and a pasture for flocks—

¹⁵ until the Spirit is poured out upon us from on high. Then the desert will be an orchard, and the orchard will seem like a forest.

¹⁶ Then justice will inhabit the wilderness, and righteousness will dwell in the fertile field.

¹⁷ The work of righteousness will be peace; the service of righteousness will be quiet confidence forever.

¹⁸ Then my people will dwell in a peaceful place, in safe and secure places of rest.

¹⁹ But hail will level the forest, and the city will sink to the depths.

²⁰ Blessed are those who sow beside abundant waters, who let the ox and donkey range freely.