In this verse the landscape is a wasteland, the once productive cultivated land now covered with thorns & briers and completely barren. But in verse 15, God promises that the land will again flourish by the power of the Holy Spirit. “Till the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the desert becomes a fertile field.” Sometimes our lives can feel the same way…dry, barren, with the worries of this life choking the Word & making us unfruitful. (Mark 4:19) But the answer is to seek after God… asking the Holy Spirit to pour out His Spirit anew & afresh on each one of us…so that we too can flourish once more.