But the people were so thirsty for water there that they went on complaining to Moses, saying, “Why did you have to bring us out of Egypt? Are you trying to kill us and our children and livestock by thirst?”
Israel is in mourning and fades away; Lebanon withers in shame; the fields of Sharon have become a desert; the forests of Bashan and Carmel have shed their leaves.
Many shepherds have come and destroyed my vineyard; they have trampled down the crops in my field. They have turned my pleasant land into an empty wasteland.
If you say to yourself, Why has this happened to me? it's because you have been so wicked. That's why your skirts were stripped off and you were raped.
Rich people send their servants to get water. They go to the cisterns, but don't find any water. They return with empty jars, disappointed and ashamed, covering their heads.
They will be like a shrub alone in the desert that isn't even aware when good things happen. It just goes on living in the dry desert, in a salt flat that's uninhabited.
You people of today, think about what the Lord is saying: Israel, have I treated you like an empty desert, or a land of thick darkness? Why are my people saying, “We can go where we like! We don't have to come and worship you any more”?
They didn't ask themselves, “Where is the Lord who led us from Egypt, who led us through the wasteland, through a land of deserts and ravines, a land of drought and darkness, a land that no one travels through and where no one lives?”
This is what the Lord says about the royal family of the king of Judah: You are as dear to me as the forests on Gilead and on the mountains of Lebanon. But I will turn you into a desert, into towns where no one lives.
Israel and Judah have not been deserted by their God, the Lord Almighty, even though they sinned against the Holy One of Israel everywhere in their country.
While you were busy with all your disgusting practices and your prostitution, you forgot about the time when you were young, completely naked and lying there kicking in your own blood.
Even though they flourish among the reeds, an east wind will come, a wind from the Lord that rises in the desert will dry up their springs and their wells will fail. It will rob from their treasury everything of value.
The ten horns that you saw and the beast will detest the prostitute, and will take away everything she has and strip her naked, eat her flesh and burn her to ashes.
Samson was now extremely thirsty, and he called out to the Lord, saying, “You have achieved this amazing victory through your servant, but now do I have to die of thirst and be captured by the heathen?”