Old Testament · Isaiah

Isaiah 21

Babylon Is Fallen

(Revelation 18:1–8)

1The burden of the wilderness of the sea. As storm-winds in the Negev sweeping through, it comes from the wilderness, from a fearful land.

2A hard vision has been declared to me; the treacherous one deals treacherously, and the destroyer destroys. Go up, O Elam! Besiege, O Media! All her sighing I have made to cease.
3Therefore my loins are filled with anguish; pangs have seized me like the pangs of one giving birth. I am bent over from hearing, I am dismayed from seeing.
4My heart wanders, horror has terrified me; the twilight of my desire he has turned for me into trembling.
5They arrange the table, they set the watch, they eat, they drink. Arise, O princes, anoint the shield!
6For thus said my Lord^a to me, "Go, station the watchman; what he sees let him declare.
7And he saw a chariot, a pair of horsemen, a chariot of donkey, a chariot of camel; and he listened attentively, with much attention."
8And he called out, a lion: "Upon the watchtower, my Lord, I am standing continually by day, and upon my charge^b I am stationed all the nights.
9And behold, here comes a chariot of men^c, a pair of horsemen." And he answered and said, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon, and all the carved images of her gods he has shattered to the ground."
10O my threshing and son of my threshing-floor, what I have heard from the LORD of hosts^d, the God of Israel, I have declared to you.

The Burden of Dumah

(Isaiah 34:5–17)

11The burden of Dumah. To me one calls out of Seir, "Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?"

12The watchman said, "Morning comes, and also night. If you will inquire, inquire; return, come."

The Burden against Arabia

13The burden upon Arabia. In the forest in Arabia you will lodge, O caravans of Dedanites.

14To meet the thirsty bring water; O inhabitants of the land of Tema, with his bread they met the fugitive.
15For from before the swords they have fled, from before the drawn sword, and from before the bent bow, and from before the heaviness of war.

16For thus said my Lord to me, "Within yet a year, like the years of a hireling, all the glory of Kedar will fail; 17and the remnant of the number of bows, the mighty men of the sons of Kedar, will be few; for the LORD, the God of Israel, has spoken."