I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none will make [you] afraid; I will rid the land of evil beasts, and the sword will not go through your land.

[They shall be] wasted with hunger, Devoured by pestilence and bitter destruction; I will also send against them the teeth of beasts, With the poison of serpents of the dust.

And it was so, at the beginning of their dwelling there, [that] they did not fear the LORD; therefore the LORD sent lions among them, which killed [some] of them.

"And I will appoint over them four forms [of destruction,"] says the LORD: "the sword to slay, the dogs to drag, the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the earth to devour and destroy.

'So I will send against you famine and wild beasts, and they will bereave you. Pestilence and blood shall pass through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I, the LORD, have spoken.' "

" If I cause wild beasts to pass through the land, and they empty it, and make it so desolate that no man may pass through because of the beasts,

For thus says the Lord GOD: "How much more it shall be when I send My four severe judgments on Jerusalem -- the sword and famine and wild beasts and pestilence -- to cut off man and beast from it?

So he turned around and looked at them, and pronounced a curse on them in the name of the LORD. And two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths.

"In the days of Shamgar, son of Anath, In the days of Jael, The highways were deserted, And the travelers walked along the byways.

"And in those times [there was] no peace to the one who went out, nor to the one who came in, but great turmoil [was] on all the inhabitants of the lands.

Therefore the curse has devoured the earth, And those who dwell in it are desolate. Therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, And few men [are] left.

The highways lie waste, The traveling man ceases. He has broken the covenant, He has despised the cities, He regards no man.

The roads to Zion mourn Because no one comes to the set feasts. All her gates are desolate; Her priests sigh, Her virgins are afflicted, And she [is] in bitterness.

" If I cause wild beasts to pass through the land, and they empty it, and make it so desolate that no man may pass through because of the beasts,

"For I will make the land most desolate, her arrogant strength shall cease, and the mountains of Israel shall be so desolate that no one will pass through.

Therefore because of you Zion shall be plowed [like] a field, Jerusalem shall become heaps of ruins, And the mountain of the temple Like the bare hills of the forest.

"But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations which they had not known. Thus the land became desolate after them, so that no one passed through or returned; for they made the pleasant land desolate."