Obadiah 1

1The vision of Obadiah. This is what Lord Yahweh says concerning Edom: We have heard a report from Yahweh, and an envoy has been sent among the nations: “Rise up! Let us rise against her for battle!”

2I will make you small among the nations; you will be utterly despised.

3The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rock, whose dwelling is on the heights, who say in your heart, “Who can bring me down to the ground?”

4Though you soar like the eagle and make your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares Yahweh.

5If thieves came to you, if robbers came by night—how you have been destroyed!—would they not steal only what they wanted? If grape pickers came to you, would they not leave some gleanings?

6But how Esau has been ransacked, his hidden treasures searched out!

7All your allies have driven you to the border; your friends have deceived you and overpowered you. Those who eat your bread have set a trap for you. There is no understanding in him.

8On that day, declares Yahweh, will I not destroy the wise men of Edom, and understanding from the mountain of Esau?

9Your warriors, Teman, will be terrified, so that everyone on the mountain of Esau will be cut off by slaughter.

10Because of the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame will cover you, and you will be cut off forever.

11On the day you stood aside, on the day strangers carried off his wealth and foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were like one of them.

12Do not gloat over your brother on the day of his misfortune; do not rejoice over the people of Judah on the day of their ruin; do not boast on the day of their distress.

13Do not enter the gate of my people on the day of their disaster; you too must not gloat over his suffering on the day of his disaster; do not seize his wealth on the day of his disaster.

14Do not stand at the crossroads to cut down his fugitives; do not hand over his survivors on the day of distress.

15For the day of Yahweh is near for all the nations. As you have done, it will be done to you; your deeds will come back on your own head.

16For just as you drank on my holy mountain, so all the nations will drink continually. They will drink and gulp it down and be as if they had never been.

17But on Mount Zion there will be those who escape, and it will be holy, and the house of Jacob will possess its own inheritance.

18The house of Jacob will be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau stubble. They will set it on fire and consume it, and there will be no survivor from the house of Esau, for Yahweh has spoken.

19Those of the Negev will possess the mountain of Esau, and those of the lowlands the land of the Philistines. They will possess the territory of Ephraim and the territory of Samaria, and Benjamin will possess Gilead.

20The exiles of this army of the Israelites will possess the land of the Canaanites as far as Zarephath, and the exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad will possess the cities of the Negev.

21Deliverers will go up on Mount Zion to rule the mountain of Esau, and the kingdom will belong to Yahweh.