He discovered him in a desert land, in a place of horror and a vast wilderness. He led him around and taught him, and he guarded him like the pupil of his eye,
Throughout all their tribulation, he was not troubled, for the Angel of his presence saved them. With his love, and by his leniency, he has redeemed them, and he has carried them and lifted them up, throughout all the days of the ages.
For just as the waistcloth clings to the loins of a man, so have I brought close to me the entire house of Israel and the entire house of Judah, says the Lord, so that they would be to me: a people, and a name, and a praise, and a glory. But they did not listen.
And they have not said: 'Where is the Lord, who caused us to ascend from the land of Egypt; who led us through the desert, through an uninhabited and impassable land, through a land of drought and of the image of death, through a land in which no one walked and in which no man lived?'
No eye took pity on you, so as to do even one of these things to you, out of compassion for you. Instead, you were cast upon the face of the earth, in the abjection of your soul, on the day when you were born.
Just as I contended in judgment against your fathers in the desert of the land of Egypt, so also will I enter into judgment with you, says the Lord God.
For thus says the Lord of hosts: After the glory, he has sent me to the Gentiles, which have despoiled you. For he who touches you, touches the pupil of my eye.
Then, setting out from Horeb, we crossed through a terrible and great wasteland, which you saw along the way of the mountain of the Amorite, just as the Lord our God had instructed us. And when we had arrived at Kadesh-barnea,
And in the wilderness (as you yourselves saw), the Lord your God carried you, like a man who is accustomed to carrying his little son, along all the way that you walked, until you arrived at this place.'
He has caused you to hear his voice from heaven, so that he might teach you. And he showed you his exceedingly great fire on earth, and you heard his words from the midst of the fire.