Isaiah, 21

¹ The pronouncement against the wilderness of the sea: Like storm winds in the south^*1 in moving onward, from the wilderness it is coming, from a fear-inspiring land.

² There is a hard vision that has been told to me: The treacherous dealer is dealing treacherously, and the despoiler is despoiling. Go up, O Eʹlam! Lay siege, O Meʹdi·a! All sighing due to her I have caused to cease.

³ That is why my hips have become full of severe pains. Convulsions themselves have grabbed hold of me, like the convulsions of a woman that is giving birth. I have become disconcerted so that I do not hear; I have become disturbed so that I do not see.

⁴ My heart has wandered about; a shuddering itself has terrified me. The twilight for which I had an attachment has been made for me a trembling.

⁵ Let there be a setting of the table in order, an arranging of the location of seats, an eating, a drinking!^*1 Get up, YOU princes, anoint the shield.

⁶ For this is what Jehovah^*1 has said to me: “Go, post a lookout that he may tell just what he sees.”

⁷ And he saw a war chariot [with] a span of steeds,^*1 a war chariot of asses, a war chariot of camels. And he paid strict attention,^*2 with much attentiveness.

⁸ And he proceeded to call out like a lion: “Upon the watchtower,^*1 O Jehovah,^*2 I am standing constantly by day, and at my guardpost I am stationed all the nights.

⁹ And here, now, there is coming a war chariot of men,^*1 [with] a span of steeds!” And he began to speak up and say: “She has fallen! Babylon has fallen, and all the graven images of her gods^*2 he has broken to the earth!”

¹⁰ O my threshed ones^*1 and the son of my threshing floor,^*2 what I have heard from Jehovah of armies, the God^*3 of Israel, I have reported to YOU people.

¹¹ The pronouncement against Duʹmah:^*1 To me there is one calling out from Seʹir: “Watchman, what about the night? Watchman, what about the night?”

¹² The watchman said: “The morning has to come, and also the night. If YOU people would inquire, inquire. Come again!”

¹³ The pronouncement against the desert plain:^*1 In the forest in the desert plain YOU will spend the night, O caravans of men of Deʹdan.

¹⁴ To meet the thirsty one BRING water. O YOU inhabitants of the land of Teʹma, confront the one fleeing away with bread for him.

¹⁵ For because of the swords they have fled away, because of the drawn sword, and because of the bent bow and because of the heaviness of the war.

¹⁶ For this is what Jehovah^*1 has said to me: “Within yet a year, according to the years of a hired laborer, all the glory of Keʹdar must even come to its end.

¹⁷ And the ones remaining over of the number of bow[men], the mighty men of the sons of Keʹdar, will become few, for Jehovah himself, the God of Israel, has spoken [it].”