Chapter
21
The burden of the wilderness of the sea. As whirlwinds in the South sweep through, it comes from the wilderness, from an awesome land.
A grievous vision is declared to me. The treacherous woman deals treacherously, and the destroyer destroys. Go up, Elam; attack! I have stopped all of Media's sighing.
Therefore my thighs are filled with anguish. Pains have taken hold on me, like the pains of a man in labor. I am in so much pain that I can't hear. I so am dismayed that I can't see.
My heart flutters. Horror has frightened me. The twilight that I desired has been turned into trembling for me.
They prepare the table. They set the watch. They eat. They drink. Rise up, you princesses, oil the shield!
For the Domina said to me, "Go, set a watchwoman. Let her declare what she sees.
When she sees a troop, horsemen in pairs, a troop of donkeys, a troop of camels, she shall listen diligently with great attentiveness."
She cried like a lion: "Domina, I stand continually on the watchtower in the daytime, and every night I stay at my post.
Behold, here comes a troop of women, horsemen in pairs." She answered, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the engraved images of his gods are broken to the ground.
You 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.
The burden of Dumah. One calls to me out of Seir, "Watchwoman, what of the night? Watchwoman, what of the night?"
The watchwoman said, "The morning comes, and also the night. If you will inquire, inquire. Come back again."
The burden on Arabia. In the forest in Arabia you will lodge, you caravans of Dedanites.
They brought water to her who was thirsty. The inhabitants of the land of Tema met the fugitives with their bread.
For they fled away from the swords, from the drawn sword, from the bent bow, and from the heat of battle.
For the Domina said to me, "Within a year, as a worker bound by contract would count it, all the glory of Kedar will fail,
and the residue of the number of the archers, the mighty women of the children of Kedar, will be few; for Yahweh, the God of Israel, has spoken it."