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 forhas been turned for me into trembling.
5. They prepare the table,they spread the rugs,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: “Upon a watchtower I stand, O Lord,continually by day,and at my post I am stationedwhole nights.
9. And behold, here come riders,horsemen in pairs!” And he answered, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the carved images of her godshe 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.
11. The oracle concerning Dumah.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.”
13. The oracle concerning Arabia.In the thickets in Arabia you will lodge,O caravans of Dedanites.