21 This is God’s message concerning Babylon:^[a]

Disaster is roaring down upon you from the terrible desert, like a whirlwind sweeping from the Negeb. ² I see an awesome vision: oh, the horror of it all! God is telling me what he is going to do. I see you plundered and destroyed. Elamites and Medes will take part in the siege. Babylon will fall, and the groaning of all the nations she enslaved will end. ³ My stomach constricts and burns with pain; sharp pangs of horror are upon me, like the pangs of a woman giving birth to a child. I faint when I hear what God is planning; I am terrified, blinded with dismay. ⁴ My mind reels; my heart races; I am gripped by awful fear. All rest at night—so pleasant once—is gone; I lie awake, trembling.

⁵ Look! They are preparing a great banquet! They load the tables with food; they pull up their chairs^[b] to eat. . . . Quick, quick, grab your shields and prepare for battle! You are being attacked!

^6-7 Meanwhile (in my vision)^[c] the Lord had told me, “Put a watchman on the city wall to shout out what he sees. When he sees riders in pairs on donkeys and camels, tell him, ‘This is it!’”

^8-9 So I put the watchman on the wall, and at last he shouted, “Sir, day after day and night after night I have been here at my post. Now at last—look! Here come riders in pairs!”

Then I heard a voice shout out, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the idols of Babylon lie broken on the ground.”

¹⁰ O my people, threshed and winnowed, I have told you all that the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, has said.