Isaiah 21:1-10 - The Fall Of Babylon

¹ The [mournful, inspired] oracle (a burden to be carried) concerning the Desert of the Sea (the seasonally flooded plains just south of Babylon):

As windstorms in the Negev (the South) sweep through,
So it (God’s judgment) comes from the desert, from [the hostile armies of] a terrifying land.
²
A harsh vision has been shown to me;
The treacherous one deals treacherously, and the destroyer destroys.
Go up, Elam! Lay siege, Media!
All the groaning [caused by Babylon’s ruthless oppressions] I [the Lord] have brought to an end.

³
Therefore [continues Isaiah] my loins are filled with anguish;
Pains have seized me like the pains of a woman in childbirth;
I am so bent and bewildered that I cannot hear, I am so terrified that I cannot see.
⁴
My mind reels, horror overwhelms me;
The twilight I longed for has been turned into fear and trembling for me.
⁵
They set the table [for the doomed banquet], they spread out the cloth, they eat, they drink;
“Rise up, captains [of Belshazzar’s court], oil your shields [for battle, for your enemy is at the gates]!”

⁶ This is what the Lord says to me,

“Go, station the lookout, let him report what he sees.
⁷
“When he sees a chariot, horsemen in pairs,
A train of donkeys and a train of camels,
Let him pay attention and listen closely, very closely.” ⁸ And the lookout called like a lion,

“O Lord, I stand continually on the watchtower by day,
And I am stationed every night at my guard post.
⁹
“Now look! Here comes a troop of riders, horsemen in pairs.”
And one said, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon;
And all the carved images of her gods are shattered on the ground.”

¹⁰
O my threshed people [Judah, who must be judged and trampled down by Babylon], my afflicted of the threshing floor.
What I have heard from the Lord of hosts,
The God of Israel, I have [joyfully] announced to you [that Babylon is to fall].