Rhyming Isaiah, Chapter 21

Rhyming Isaiah, Chapter 21

An oracle, the desert by the sea,
about. As whirlwinds, through the Negeb, sweep,
it, from the desert, comes. It’s told to me,
a vision, stern; the traitor is betrayed,
he, the destroyer, coming to destroy.
Advance, you, Elam, Media, lay siege;
the sighing she has caused, I’ll make it cease.
Therefore my loins are filled with anguishing,
pain’s pangs have seized me like the pangs of her,
a woman who’s in labor; I can’t hear,
because I am bowed down, I cannot see
because I am dismayed. My mind, it reels,
appalled, me, horror has; what I longed for,
the twilight, into trembling, it’s transformed
for me. The table, that has been prepared,
they spread the rugs, they also drink, they eat.
Rise up, commanders, put oil on the shield!
For this is what the Lord has said to me:
“Go, post a lookout, and let him announce
all that he sees. When he sees them ride out,
paired horsemen and those who, on donkeys, mount,
the camel-riders, diligently let
him listen, very diligently, then.”
The lookout watchman, this, what he proclaimed:
“On the watchtower, Lord, I stay all day,
I’m stationed through the watches of the night.
Look, there they come, paired horsemen, how they ride!”
Then he responded, “Fallen, fallen is,
how, Babylon, and too, the images
of all her gods lie shattered on the ground.”
My people, threshed, you are my winnowed one,
what I have heard, the LORD of Hosts, him, from,
to you announce, the God of Israel.”

Concerning Dumah is this oracle:

From Seir, someone, out to me has cried,
“O Watchman, tell me, what is left of night?
O sentinel, what of the night remains?”
The watchman says, “It’s coming, morning time,
and then it soon will be night once again.
If you’ll inquire, ask; come back later, then.”

The oracle about the desert plain.

That of the desert plain, you’ll live amidst
its scrub, of Dedanites, O caravans.
Bring water to the men who have great thirst,
and meet the fugitive with loaves of bread,
O you inhabitants of Tema’s land.
For they have from the sword, the drawn sword, fled,
from the bent bow, and from the battle’s stress.

“Within a year,” thus, to me, said the LORD,
“the way he counts, a worker who’s been hired,
the years exactly, all that of Kedar,
its glory suddenly, how it will cease;
few bows are left for Kedar’s warriors,”
for Is’rael’s God, the LORD, this, spoken, has.