1. The oracle of the desert of the sea. 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 longedhas turned into trembling for me.
5. Prepare the table,watch in the watchtower,eat and drink.Arise, you princes,and oil the shields.
6. For thus the Lord has said to me: “Go, station a watchman;let him declare what he sees.
7. When he sees chariotswith horsemen in pairs,a chariot of donkeys,and a chariot of camels,then let him pay close attention,very close attention.”
8. Then the watchman called: “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 godslie 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.
11. The oracle of Dumah. He calls to me out of Seir,“Watchman, how far gone is the night?Watchman, how far gone is the night?”