“Thus says the LORD of hosts: In this place that is waste, without man or beast, and in all of its cities, there shall again be habitations of shepherds resting their flocks.”

Jeremiah 33:12 (ESV)

When the Bible thinks of ecological restoration, its vision is not a return to wilderness, but cultivation: shepherds working the land.

Although some have said that the Bible moves from a garden to a city, we should note the presence of shepherds resting their flocks—the pastoral setting—in its eschatological vision as well.