As whirlwinds in the Negeb sweep on,
    it comes from the wilderness,
    from a terrible land.
² A stern vision is told to me;
    the traitor betrays,
    and the destroyer destroys.
Go up, O Elam;
    lay siege, O Media;
all the sighing she has caused
    I bring to an end.
³ Therefore my loins are filled with anguish;
    pangs have seized me,
    like the pangs of a woman in labor;
I am bowed down so that I cannot hear;
    I am dismayed so that I cannot see.
⁴ My heart staggers; horror has appalled me;
    the twilight I longed for
    has been turned for me into trembling.
⁵ They prepare the table,
    they spread the rugs,^[a]
    they eat, they drink.
Arise, O princes;
    oil the shield!
⁶ For thus the Lord said to me:
“Go, set a watchman;
    let him announce what he sees.
⁷ When he sees riders, horsemen in pairs,
    riders on donkeys, riders on camels,
let him listen diligently,
    very diligently.”
⁸ Then he who saw cried out:^[b]
“Upon a watchtower I stand, O Lord,
    continually by day,
and at my post I am stationed
    whole nights.
⁹ And behold, here come riders,
    horsemen in pairs!”
And he answered,
    “Fallen, fallen is Babylon;
and all the carved images of her gods
    he has shattered to the ground.”
¹⁰ O my threshed and winnowed one,
    what I have heard from the Lord of hosts,
    the God of Israel, I announce to you.

One is calling to me from Seir,
    “Watchman, what time of the night?
    Watchman, what time of the night?”
¹² The watchman says:
“Morning comes, and also the night.
    If you will inquire, inquire;
    come back again.”

In the thickets in Arabia you will lodge,
    O caravans of Dedanites.
¹⁴ To the thirsty bring water;
    meet the fugitive with bread,
    O inhabitants of the land of Tema.
¹⁵ For they have fled from the swords,
    from the drawn sword,
from the bent bow,
    and from the press of battle.

What do you mean that you have gone up,
    all of you, to the housetops,
² you who are full of shoutings,
    tumultuous city, exultant town?
Your slain are not slain with the sword
    or dead in battle.
³ All your leaders have fled together;
    without the bow they were captured.
All of you who were found were captured,
    though they had fled far away.
⁴ Therefore I said:
“Look away from me;
    let me weep bitter tears;
do not labor to comfort me
    concerning the destruction of the daughter of my people.”

⁵ For the Lord God of hosts has a day
    of tumult and trampling and confusion
    in the valley of vision,
a battering down of walls
    and a shouting to the mountains.
⁶ And Elam bore the quiver
    with chariots and horsemen,
    and Kir uncovered the shield.
⁷ Your choicest valleys were full of chariots,
    and the horsemen took their stand at the gates.
⁸ He has taken away the covering of Judah.

¹² In that day the Lord God of hosts
    called for weeping and mourning,
    for baldness and wearing sackcloth;
¹³ and behold, joy and gladness,
    killing oxen and slaughtering sheep,
    eating flesh and drinking wine.
“Let us eat and drink,
    for tomorrow we die.”
¹⁴ The Lord of hosts has revealed himself in my ears:
“Surely this iniquity will not be atoned for you until you die,”
    says the Lord God of hosts.