Isaiah 21:1-10

Revised Standard Version

21 The oracle concerning the wilderness of the sea.
As whirlwinds in the Negeb sweep on,
    it comes from the desert,
    from a terrible land.
² A stern vision is told to me;
    the plunderer plunders,
    and the destroyer destroys.
Go up, O Elam,
    lay siege, O Media;
all the sighing she has caused
    I bring to an end.
³ Therefore my loins are filled with anguish;
    pangs have seized me,
    like the pangs of a woman in travail;
I am bowed down so that I cannot hear,
    I am dismayed so that I cannot see.
⁴ My mind reels, horror has appalled me;
    the twilight I longed for
    has been turned for me into trembling.
⁵ They prepare the table,
    they spread the rugs,
    they eat, they drink.
Arise, O princes,
    oil the shield!
⁶ For thus the Lord said to me:
“Go, set a watchman,
    let him announce what he sees.
⁷ When he sees riders, horsemen in pairs,
    riders on asses, riders on camels,
let him listen diligently,
    very diligently.”
⁸ Then he who saw^[a] cried:
“Upon a watchtower I stand, O Lord,
    continually by day,
and at my post I am stationed
    whole nights.
⁹ And behold, here come riders,
    horsemen in pairs!”
And he answered,
    “Fallen, fallen is Babylon;
and all the images of her gods
    he has shattered to the ground.”
¹⁰ O my threshed and winnowed one,
    what I have heard from the Lord of hosts,
    the God of Israel, I announce to you.