1 The oracle about the wilderness by the sea. Like storm winds blowing across the Negev, it comes from the desert, from a land of terror.
2 A grim vision has been shown to me: the betrayer keeps betraying, the destroyer keeps destroying. Attack, Elam! Besiege, Media! I am putting an end to all the groaning she has caused.
3 That is why my body is racked with pain; pangs have gripped me like the pangs of a woman giving birth. I am too bent over to hear, too shaken to see.
4 My mind staggers; shuddering overwhelms me; the twilight I longed for has turned into terror for me.
5 The table is set, the rugs are laid out, they eat, they drink. Get up, you officers, grease the shields!
6 For this is what the Lord told me: "Go, post a lookout, and have him report whatever he sees.
7 When he sees riders, horsemen in pairs, riders on donkeys, riders on camels, let him be alert, fully alert."
8 Then the lookout called out like a lion: "Lord, day after day I stand on the watchtower, and every night I stay at my post.
9 Look, here comes a man in a chariot, with horsemen in pairs!" Then he spoke up: "Babylon has fallen, has fallen! All the images of her gods lie smashed on the ground."
10 You, my threshed one, child of my threshing floor, what I have heard from the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, I have announced to you.
11 The oracle about Dumah. Someone is calling to me from Seir, "Watchman, how much of the night is left? Watchman, how much of the night?"
12 The watchman answers, "Morning is coming, but night as well. If you want to ask, ask; come back again."
13 The oracle about Arabia. In the thickets of Arabia you will spend the night, you caravans of the Dedanites.
14 Bring water to meet the thirsty, you who live in the land of Tema; come with bread to meet the refugees.
15 They are running from swords, from the drawn sword and the bent bow, and from the heat of battle.
16 For the Lord told me this: "Within one year, counted as a hired man counts it, all the splendor of Kedar will be gone.
17 Few of the archers will be left, the warriors of the children of Kedar, for the LORD, the God of Israel, has spoken."