Isaiah 21:1 - 21:10

The oracle concerning the wilderness of the sea.

As whirlwinds in the Negev sweep on,

It comes from the wilderness, from a fearsome land.

A harsh vision has been declared to me;

The treacherous one still deals treacherously, and the destroyer still destroys.

Go up, Elam, lay siege, Media;

I have made an end of all the groaning she has caused.

For this reason my loins are full of anguish;

Pains have seized me like the pains of a woman in labor.

I am so bewildered I cannot hear, so terrified I cannot see.

My heart reels; horror terrorizes me;

The twilight I longed for has been turned for me into trembling.

They set the table, they spread out the cloth, they eat, they drink;

“Rise up, commanders, oil the shields,”

6 For thus the Lord says to me,

“Go, station the lookout, let him declare what he sees.

Indeed, he shall see riders, horsemen in pairs,

Riders of donkeys, riders of camels,

So let him pay close attention, very close attention.”

8 Then the lookout called,

“O Lord, I stand continually by day on the watchtower,

And I am stationed every night at my guard post.

Now behold, here comes a troop of riders, horsemen in pairs.”

And one answered and said, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon;

And all the graven images of her gods are shattered on the ground.”

O my trampled people and my afflicted of the threshing floor!

What I have heard from Yahweh of hosts,

The God of Israel, I have declared to you.