Isaiah 21:5-12

5Arrange the table, lay out the carpet, eat and drink! Get up, you officers, smear oil on the shields!

6For this is what the sovereign master has told me: “Go, post a guard! He must report what he sees.

7When he sees chariots, teams of horses, riders on donkeys, riders on camels, he must be alert, very alert.”

8Then the guard cries out: “On the watchtower, O sovereign master, I stand all day long; at my post I am stationed every night.

9Look what’s coming! A charioteer, a team of horses.” When questioned, he replies, “Babylon has fallen, fallen! All the idols of her gods lie shattered on the ground!”

10O my downtrodden people, crushed like stalks on the threshing floor, what I have heard from the Lord who commands armies, the God of Israel, I have reported to you.

11Here is a message about Dumah: Someone calls to me from Seir, “Watchman, what is left of the night? Watchman, what is left of the night?”

12The watchman replies, “Morning is coming, but then night. If you want to ask, ask; come back again.”