Isaiah 20-21

World English Bible

20 In the year that Tartan came to Ashdod, when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him, and he fought against Ashdod and took it; ² at that time Yahweh spoke by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, “Go, and loosen the sackcloth from off your waist, and take your sandals from off your feet.” He did so, walking naked and barefoot. ³ Yahweh said, “As my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and a wonder concerning Egypt and concerning Ethiopia, ⁴ so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Ethiopia, young and old, naked and barefoot, and with buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt. ⁵ They will be dismayed and confounded, because of Ethiopia their expectation, and of Egypt their glory. ⁶ The inhabitants of this coast land will say in that day, ‘Behold, this is our expectation, where we fled for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria. And we, how will we escape?’”

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. ² A grievous vision is declared to me. The treacherous man deals treacherously, and the destroyer destroys. Go up, Elam; attack! I have stopped all of Media’s sighing. ³ Therefore my thighs are filled with anguish. Pains have seized me, like the pains of a woman in labor. I am in so much pain that I can’t hear. I am so dismayed that I can’t see. ⁴ My heart flutters. Horror has frightened me. The twilight that I desired has been turned into trembling for me. ⁵ They prepare the table. They set the watch. They eat. They drink. Rise up, you princes, oil the shield! ⁶ For the Lord said to me, “Go, set a watchman. Let him declare what he sees. ⁷ When he sees a troop, horsemen in pairs, a troop of donkeys, a troop of camels, he shall listen diligently with great attentiveness.” ⁸ He cried like a lion: “Lord, I stand continually on the watchtower in the daytime, and every night I stay at my post. ⁹ Behold, here comes a troop of men, horsemen in pairs.” He answered, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the engraved images of her gods are broken to the ground.

¹⁰ 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.

¹¹ The burden of Dumah.

One calls to me out of Seir, “Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?” ¹² The watchman said, “The morning comes, and also the night. If you will inquire, inquire. Come back again.”

¹³ The burden on Arabia.

In the forest in Arabia you will lodge, you caravans of Dedanites. ¹⁴ They brought water to him who was thirsty. The inhabitants of the land of Tema met the fugitives with their bread. ¹⁵ For they fled away from the swords, from the drawn sword, from the bent bow, and from the heat of battle. ¹⁶ For the Lord said to me, “Within a year, as a worker bound by contract would count it, all the glory of Kedar will fail, ¹⁷ and the residue of the number of the archers, the mighty men of the children of Kedar, will be few; for Yahweh, the God of Israel, has spoken it.”