I will make it a wasteland; no one will prune its vines or hoe its ground, ¹  and thorns and briers will grow there. I will order the clouds not to drop any rain on it.

He cuts down cedars and acquires a cypress ¹  or an oak. He gets ²  trees from the forest; he plants a cedar ³  and the rain makes it grow.

¹ The rain and snow fall from the sky and do not return, but instead water the earth and make it produce and yield crops, and provide seed for the planter and food for those who must eat.

O sky, rain down from above! Let the clouds send down showers ¹  of deliverance! Let the earth absorb it ²  so salvation may grow, ³  and deliverance may sprout up ⁴  along with it. I, the Lord, create it. ⁵ 

By day it will be a shelter to provide shade from the heat, as well as safety and protection from the heavy downpour. ¹ 

He will water the seed you plant in the ground, and the ground will produce crops in abundance. ¹  At that time ²  your cattle will graze in wide pastures.

Look, the sovereign master ¹  sends a strong, powerful one. ²  With the force of a hailstorm or a destructive windstorm, ³  with the might of a driving, torrential rainstorm, ⁴  he will knock that crown ⁵  to the ground with his hand. ⁶ 

For you are a protector for the poor, a protector for the needy in their distress, a shelter from the rainstorm, a shade from the heat. Though the breath of tyrants ¹  is like a winter rainstorm, ² 

The earth ¹  dries up ²  and withers, the world shrivels up and withers; the prominent people of the earth ³  fade away.

For this is what the Lord has told me: “I will wait ¹  and watch from my place, like scorching heat produced by the sunlight, ²  like a cloud of mist ³  in the heat ⁴  of harvest.” ⁵ 

The Lord will give a mighty shout ¹  and intervene in power, ²  with furious anger and flaming, destructive fire, ³  with a driving rainstorm and hailstones.