He found him in a desert land, in a place of horror, and of vast wilderness. He led him about, and taught him: and he kept him as the apple of his eye.
For thus saith the Lord of hosts: After the glory he hath sent me to the nations that have robbed you: for he that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of my eye:
And they have not said: Where is the Lord that made us come up out of the land of Egypt? that led us through the desert, through a land uninhabited and unpassable, through a land of drought, and the image of death, through a land wherein no man walked, nor any man dwelt?
Who is this that cometh up from the desert, flowing with delights, leaning upon her beloved? Under the apple tree I raised thee up: there thy mother was corrupted, there she was defloured that bore thee.
From heaven he made thee to hear his voice, that he might teach thee. And upon earth he shewed thee his exceeding great fire: and thou didst hear his words out of the midst of the fire,
And departing from Horeb, we passed through the terrible and vast wilderness, which you saw, by the way of the mountain of the Amorrhite, as the Lord our God had commanded us. And when we were come into Cadesbarne,
And in the wilderness (as thou hast seen) the Lord thy God hath carried thee, as a man is wont to carry his little son, all the way that you have come, until you came to this place.
In all their affliction he was not troubled: and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love, and in his mercy he redeemed them: and he carried them and lifted them up all the days of old.
For as the girdle sticketh close to the loins of a man, so have I brought close to me all of the house of Israel and all the house of Juda, saith the Lord: that they might be my people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory. But they would not hear.
No eye had pity on thee to do any of these things for thee, out of compassion to thee: but thou wast cast out upon the face of the earth in the abjection of thy soul, in the day that thou wast born.