1 T he burden of the wilderness of the sea. As whirlwinds in the South sweep through, it comes from the wilderness, from an awesome land.

2 A grievous vision is declared to me. The treacherous man deals treacherously, and the destroyer destroys. Go up, Elam; attack! I have stopped all of Media’s sighing.

3 T herefore my thighs are filled with anguish. Pains have taken hold on me, like the pains of a woman in labor. I am in so much pain that I can’t hear. I so am dismayed that I can’t see.

4 M y heart flutters. Horror has frightened me. The twilight that I desired has been turned into trembling for me.

5 T hey prepare the table. They set the watch. They eat. They drink. Rise up, you princes, oil the shield!

6 F or the Lord said to me, “Go, set a watchman. Let him declare what he sees.

7 W hen he sees a troop, horsemen in pairs, a troop of donkeys, a troop of camels, he shall listen diligently with great attentiveness.”

8 H e cried like a lion: “Lord, I stand continually on the watchtower in the daytime, and every night I stay at my post.

9 B ehold, here comes a troop of men, horsemen in pairs.” He answered, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the engraved images of her gods are broken to the ground.

10 Y ou are my threshing, and the grain of my floor!” That which I have heard from Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, I have declared to you.

11 T he burden of Dumah. One calls to me out of Seir, “Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?”

12 T he watchman said, “The morning comes, and also the night. If you will inquire, inquire. Come back again.”

13 T he burden on Arabia. In the forest in Arabia you will lodge, you caravans of Dedanites.

14 T hey brought water to him who was thirsty. The inhabitants of the land of Tema met the fugitives with their bread.

15 F or they fled away from the swords, from the drawn sword, from the bent bow, and from the heat of battle.

16 F or the Lord said to me, “Within a year, as a worker bound by contract would count it, all the glory of Kedar will fail,

17 a nd the residue of the number of the archers, the mighty men of the children of Kedar, will be few; for Yahweh, the God of Israel, has spoken it.”