Against Babylon
21
📚The burden concerning the desert by the sea✭:As whirlwinds pass through
the south,
so this comes from
the desert,
from a terrible land.
2 📚A grievous vision has been
declared to me:
the treacherous dealer
deals treacherously,
and the plunderer plunders.
Go up, O Elam!
Lay siege, O Media!
I have brought to an end
all the groaning it has caused.
3 📚✭Therefore my loins are filled
with pain;
pangs have taken hold of me,
like the pangs of a woman
in labour.
I writhe at the hearing of it;
I am dismayed by seeing it.
4 📚My heart pounds,
terror makes me afraid,
the twilight I desired he has
turned into fear for me.
5 📚✭Prepare the table!
Be on the lookout in
the watchtower!
Eat, drink!
Arise, you princes,
and anoint the shield!
6 📚✭For thus the Lord has said to me,
“Go, set a watchman.
Have him declare what he sees”.
7 📚And he saw a chariot with
a pair of horsemen,
a chariot of donkeys,
and a chariot of camels;
and he listened alertly with great care.
8 📚And he cried out like a lion,
“My lord, I stand continually
on the watchtower
in the daytime,
and I have sat at my post
whole nights;
9 📚And, look,
here comes a chariot of men,
with a pair of horsemen”.
And he answered and said,
“Babylon has fallen,
has fallen!
And all the carved images of her
gods he has broken
to the ground”.
10 📚O my threshing,
and the grain of my floor!
I have declared to you
what I have heard✭ from
the LORD of hosts,
the God of Israel.
Against Edom
11 📚The burden concerning
Dumah✭:
He calls out to me
from Seir,
“Watchman,
what of the night?
Watchman,
what of the night?”
12 📚The watchman said,
“The morning✭ comes,
and also the night.
If you will inquire,
inquire✭. Return, come”.
Against Arabia
13 📚The burden against Arabia✭:
In the forest in Arabia you will lodge,
O you caravans of Dedanim✭.
14 📚The inhabitants of the land
of Tema✭ brought water
to him who was thirsty,
with their bread
they met him who fled.
15 📚✭For they fled from the sword,
from the drawn sword,
and from the bent bow,
and from the stress of battle.
16 📚For thus the Lord has said to me,
“Within a year,
as a hired man counts the years,
all the glory of Kedar✭ will fail,
17 📚and the remainder of
the number of archers,
the mighty men of the children
of Kedar, will be diminished;
for the LORD God of Israel
has spoken it”.