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.”