Isaiah 21:1-8
English Standard Version
2A 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.
3Therefore 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.
4My 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, they eat, they drink. Arise, O princes; oil the shield!
6For thus the Lord said to me: "Go, set a watchman; let him announce what he sees.
7When he sees riders, horsemen in pairs, riders on donkeys, riders on camels, let him listen diligently, very diligently."
8Then he who saw cried out: "Upon a watchtower I stand, O Lord, continually by day, and at my post I am stationed whole nights.
