Isaiah 21:1-17
21 A pronouncement against the wilderness of the sea:*+
It is coming like storm winds that sweep through in the south,From the wilderness, from a fearsome land.+
2 A harsh vision has been told to me:
The treacherous one is acting treacherously,And the destroyer is destroying.
Go up, O Eʹlam! Lay siege, O Meʹdi·a!+
I will put an end to all the sighing she caused.+
3 That is why I am in great anguish.*+
Convulsions have seized me,Like those of a woman giving birth.
I am too distressed to hear;I am too disturbed to see.
4 My heart falters; I shudder in terror.
The twilight I longed for makes me tremble.
5 Set the table and arrange the seats!
Eat and drink!+
Get up, you princes, anoint* the shield!
6 For this is what Jehovah said to me:
“Go, post a lookout and have him report what he sees.”
7 And he saw a war chariot with a team of horses,A war chariot of donkeys,A war chariot of camels.
He watched carefully, with great attentiveness.
8 Then he called out like a lion:
“Upon the watchtower, O Jehovah, I am standing constantly by day,And I am stationed at my guardpost every night.+
9 Look at what is coming:
Men in a war chariot with a team of horses!”+
Then he spoke up and said:
“She has fallen! Babylon has fallen!+
All the graven images of her gods he has shattered to the ground!”+
10 O my people who have been threshed,The product* of my threshing floor,+I have reported to you what I have heard from Jehovah of armies, the God of Israel.
11 A pronouncement against Duʹmah:*
Someone is calling out to me from Seʹir:+
“Watchman, what of the night?
Watchman, what of the night?”
12 The watchman said:
“The morning is coming, and also the night.
If you would inquire, inquire.
Come again!”
13 A pronouncement against the desert plain:
In the forest in the desert plain you will spend the night,O caravans of Deʹdan.+
14 Bring water to meet the thirsty one,You inhabitants of the land of Teʹma,+And bring bread for the one fleeing.
15 For they have fled from the swords, from the drawn sword,From the bent bow, and from the cruelty of the war.
16 For this is what Jehovah said to me: “Within one year, like the years of a hired worker,* all the glory of Keʹdar+ will come to an end.
17 The remaining bowmen of the warriors of Keʹdar will be few, for Jehovah the God of Israel has spoken.”
Footnotes
^ Apparently refers to the region of ancient Babylonia.
^ Lit., “my hips are full of pain.”
^ Or “oil.”
^ Lit., “son.”
^ Meaning “Silence.”
^ Or “counted as carefully as a hired worker does”; that is, in exactly one year.
