18:1 Ah, land of whirring wings
 that is beyond the rivers of Cush, [4]
2 which sends ambassadors by the sea,
 in vessels of papyrus on the waters!
Go, you swift messengers,
 to a nation, tall and smooth,
to a people feared near and far,
 a nation mighty and conquering,
 whose land the rivers divide.

3 All you inhabitants of the world,
 you who dwell on the earth,
when a signal is raised on the mountains, look!
 When a trumpet is blown, hear!
4 For thus the Lord said to me:
“I will quietly look from my dwelling
 like clear heat in sunshine,
 like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”
5 For before the harvest, when the blossom is over,
 and the flower becomes a ripening grape,
he cuts off the shoots with pruning hooks,
 and the spreading branches he lops off and clears away.
6 They shall all of them be left
 to the birds of prey of the mountains
 and to the beasts of the earth.
And the birds of prey will summer on them,
 and all the beasts of the earth will winter on them.

from a people tall and smooth,
 from a people feared near and far,
a nation mighty and conquering,
 whose land the rivers divide,

Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud
 and comes to Egypt;
and the idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence,
 and the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them.
2 And I will stir up Egyptians against Egyptians,
 and they will fight, each against another
 and each against his neighbor,
 city against city, kingdom against kingdom;
3 and the spirit of the Egyptians within them will be emptied out,
 and I will confound [1] their counsel;
and they will inquire of the idols and the sorcerers,
 and the mediums and the necromancers;
4 and I will give over the Egyptians
 into the hand of a hard master,
and a fierce king will rule over them,
 declares the Lord God of hosts.

5 And the waters of the sea will be dried up,
 and the river will be dry and parched,
6 and its canals will become foul,
 and the branches of Egypt’s Nile will diminish and dry up,
 reeds and rushes will rot away.
7 There will be bare places by the Nile,
 on the brink of the Nile,
and all that is sown by the Nile will be parched,
 will be driven away, and will be no more.
8 The fishermen will mourn and lament,
 all who cast a hook in the Nile;
and they will languish
 who spread nets on the water.
9 The workers in combed flax will be in despair,
 and the weavers of white cotton.
10 Those who are the pillars of the land will be crushed,
 and all who work for pay will be grieved.

11 The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish;
 the wisest counselors of Pharaoh give stupid counsel.
How can you say to Pharaoh,
 “I am a son of the wise,
 a son of ancient kings”?
12 Where then are your wise men?
 Let them tell you
 that they might know what the Lord of hosts has purposed against Egypt.
13 The princes of Zoan have become fools,
 and the princes of Memphis are deluded;
those who are the cornerstones of her tribes
 have made Egypt stagger.
14 The Lord has mingled within her a spirit of confusion,
and they will make Egypt stagger in all its deeds,
 as a drunken man staggers in his vomit.
15 And there will be nothing for Egypt
 that head or tail, palm branch or reed, may do.

As whirlwinds in the Negeb sweep on,
 it comes from the wilderness,
 from a terrible land.
2 A 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.
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 for
 has been turned for me into trembling.
5 They prepare the table,
 they spread the rugs, [4]
 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: [5]
“Upon a watchtower I stand, O Lord,
 continually by day,
and at my post I am stationed
 whole nights.
9 And behold, here come riders,
 horsemen in pairs!”
And he answered,
 “Fallen, fallen is Babylon;
and all the carved images of her gods
 he 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.

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.”

In the thickets in Arabia you will lodge,
 O caravans of Dedanites.
14 To the thirsty bring water;
 meet the fugitive with bread,
 O inhabitants of the land of Tema.
15 For they have fled from the swords,
 from the drawn sword,
from the bent bow,
 and from the press of battle.

What do you mean that you have gone up,
 all of you, to the housetops,
2 you who are full of shoutings,
 tumultuous city, exultant town?
Your slain are not slain with the sword
 or dead in battle.
3 All your leaders have fled together;
 without the bow they were captured.
All of you who were found were captured,
 though they had fled far away.
4 Therefore I said:
“Look away from me;
 let me weep bitter tears;
do not labor to comfort me
 concerning the destruction of the daughter of my people.”

5 For the Lord God of hosts has a day
 of tumult and trampling and confusion
 in the valley of vision,
a battering down of walls
 and a shouting to the mountains.
6 And Elam bore the quiver
 with chariots and horsemen,
 and Kir uncovered the shield.
7 Your choicest valleys were full of chariots,
 and the horsemen took their stand at the gates.
8 He has taken away the covering of Judah.

12 In that day the Lord God of hosts
 called for weeping and mourning,
 for baldness and wearing sackcloth;
13 and behold, joy and gladness,
 killing oxen and slaughtering sheep,
 eating flesh and drinking wine.
“Let us eat and drink,
 for tomorrow we die.”
14 The Lord of hosts has revealed himself in my ears:
“Surely this iniquity will not be atoned for you until you die,”
 says the Lord God of hosts.