You make grass grow for the cattle and plants for us to use, so that we can grow our crops

In the field the mother deer abandons her newborn fawn because there is no grass.

The wild donkeys stand on the hilltops and pant for breath like jackals; their eyesight fails them because they have no food.

The cattle are bellowing in distress because there is no pasture for them; the flocks of sheep also suffer.

Animals, don't be afraid. The pastures are green; the trees bear their fruit, and there are plenty of figs and grapes.

Even though the fig trees have no fruit and no grapes grow on the vines, even though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no grain, even though the sheep all die and the cattle stalls are empty,

For creation was condemned to lose its purpose, not of its own will, but because God willed it to be so. Yet there was the hope

For we know that up to the present time all of creation groans with pain, like the pain of childbirth.