Isaiah

¹ The oracle concerning the wilderness of the sea. As whirlwinds in the Negev sweep on, It comes from the wilderness, from a fearsome land.

² The treacherous one still deals treacherously, and the destroyer still destroys. Go up, Elam, lay siege, Media; I have made an end of all the groaning she has caused.

³ Pains have seized me like the pains of a woman in labor. I am so bewildered I cannot hear, so terrified I cannot see.

⁴ The twilight I longed for has been turned for me into trembling.

⁵ “Rise up, commanders, oil the shields,”

⁷ Riders of donkeys, riders of camels, So let him pay close attention, very close attention.”

⁸ And I am stationed every night at my guard post.

⁹ And one answered and said, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon; And all the graven images of her gods are shattered on the ground.”

¹⁰ What I have heard from Yahweh of hosts, The God of Israel, I have declared to you.

¹¹ The oracle concerning Dumah. One keeps calling to me from Seir, “Watchman, how far gone is the night? Watchman, how far gone is the night?”

¹² “Morning comes but also night. If you would inquire, inquire; Come back again.”

¹³ O caravans of Dedanites.

¹⁴ O inhabitants of the land of Tema, Meet with bread the one who has fled.

¹⁵ From the drawn sword, and from the bent bow And from the heaviness of battle.

¹⁶ For thus the Lord said to me, “In a year, as a hired man would count it, all the glory of Kedar will end;

¹⁷ and the remainder of the number of bowmen, the mighty men of the sons of Kedar, will be few; for Yahweh, the God of Israel, has spoken.”