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Isaiah 21
The fall of Babylon
1 Oracle on the maritime plain: As whirlwinds sweeping over the Negeb come from the desert, from a land of horror
2 – a harsh vision has been shown me – the plunderer plunders, the destroyer destroys. ‘Go up, Elam, lay siege, Media. I am putting an end to groaning.’
3 This is why my loins are wracked with shuddering; I am seized with pains like the pains of a woman in labour; I am too distressed to hear, too afraid to see.
4 My heart flutters, dread makes me tremble, the twilight I longed for has become my horror.
5 They spread the table, cover it with a cloth; they eat, they drink… Up, captains, grease the shield!
6 For this is what the Lord has said to me, ‘Go and post the watchman, and let him report what he sees.
7 ‘If he sees cavalry, horsemen two by two, men mounted on donkeys, men mounted on camels, let him observe, closely observe.’
8 The look-out shouts, ‘On a watchtower, Lord, I stand all day; and at my post I keep guard all night’.
9 Look, here come the cavalry, horsemen two by two. They spoke to me; they said, ‘Fallen, fallen is Babylon, and all the images of her gods are shattered on the ground’.
10 You who are threshed, you who are winnowed, what I have learnt from Yahweh Sabaoth, from the God of Israel, I am telling you now.
Answer to the Edomites
11 Oracle on Edom: Someone shouts to me from Seir, ‘Watchman, what time of night? Watchman, what time of night?’
12 The watchman answers, ‘Morning is coming, then night again. If you want to, why not ask, turn round, come back?’
Oracle on the Arabs
13 Oracle in the wastelands. You who pass the night in the scrublands, in the wastelands, you caravans of Dedanites,[*a] bring water
14 for the thirsty. You inhabitants of Tema go and meet the fugitive and give him bread;
15 since these are fleeing from the swords, from biting swords, from bent bows, from the stress of battle.
Against Kedar
16 Yes, the Lord said this to me, ‘In one year’s time as a wage-earner reckons it, all the glorious power of Kedar will be finished.
17 Of the bowmen, of the hardiest sons of Kedar, hardly any will be left, for Yahweh God of Israel has decreed this.’