Ezekiel 36:3

therefore prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord God, Because they have made you desolate, all the enemies round about having combined to make the Land of Promise a desert waste, and swallowed you up on every side, literally, "panted after you," like a beast trying to reach its prey, snorting and snapping in its eagerness, that ye might be a possession unto the residue of the heathen, those remaining after their own countries had felt the devastating might of the conquerors, and ye are taken up in the lips of talkers, to be bandied about in blasphemous jest and slander, and are an infamy of the people, objects of calumny and derision,