As whirlwinds in the Negev pass through,
    so it comes from the desert,
    from a terrible land.

² A grievous vision is declared to me;
    the treacherous one still deals treacherously, and the destroyer still destroys.
Go up, O Elam. Lay siege, O Media.
    All her sighing I have made to cease.

³ Therefore, my loins are filled with pain;
    pangs have taken hold of me as the pangs of a woman who travails.
I am so perplexed at the hearing of it;
    I am so dismayed at the seeing of it.
⁴ My heart panted,
    fearfulness overwhelmed me;
the night for which I longed
    has turned into trembling for me.

⁵ Prepare the table,
    watch in the watchtower,
    eat and drink.
Arise, you princes,
    and oil the shields.

“Go, station a watchman;
    let him declare what he sees.
⁷ When he sees chariots
    with horsemen in pairs,
a chariot of donkeys,
    and a chariot of camels,
then let him pay close attention,
    very close attention.”

“O Lord, I stand continually on the watchtower in the daytime,
    and I am stationed at my guard post every night.
⁹ Look, here comes a chariot of men,
    horsemen in pairs.”
And he answered and said,
    “Fallen, fallen is Babylon.
And all the graven images of her gods
    lie shattered on the ground.”

¹⁰ O my threshed people and my afflicted of the threshing floor!
    What I have heard from the Lord of Hosts,
the God of Israel,
    I have declared to you.