Obadiah

Obadiah

The vision of Obadiah.

Thus says the Sovereign YHWH concerning Edom:

We have heard a message from YHWH,

and a messenger has been sent among the nations:

“Rise up! Let us rise against her for battle!”

“Behold, I will make you small among the nations;

you shall be utterly despised.

The pride of your heart has deceived you,

you who dwell in the clefts of the rock,

whose habitation is high,

who say in your heart,

‘Who will bring me down to the ground?’

Though you soar aloft like the eagle,

though your nest is set among the stars,

from there I will bring you down,”

declares YHWH.

If thieves came to you,

if plunderers by night—how you have been ruined!—

would they not steal only enough for themselves?

If grape gatherers came to you,

would they not leave gleanings?

How Esau has been pillaged,

his hidden treasures sought out!

All your allies have driven you to the border;

those at peace with you have deceived you;

they have prevailed against you.

Those who eat your bread have set a trap beneath you—

you have no understanding of it.

“Shall I not on that day,” declares YHWH,

“destroy the wise men out of Edom,

and understanding out of Mount Esau?

Your mighty men shall be dismayed, O Teman,

so that every man from Mount Esau will be cut off by slaughter.”

Because of the violence done to your brother Jacob,

shame shall cover you,

and you shall be cut off forever.

On the day that you stood aloof,

on the day that strangers carried off his wealth

and foreigners entered his gates

and cast lots for Jerusalem—

you were like one of them.

But you should not have gloated over your brother

in the day of his misfortune;

you should not have rejoiced over the people of Judah

in the day of their ruin;

you should not have boasted

in the day of distress.

You should not have entered the gate of My people

in the day of their calamity;

you should not have looked on his affliction

in the day of his disaster,

or looted his goods

in the day of his calamity.

You should not have stood at the crossroads

to cut off his fugitives;

you should not have handed over his survivors

in the day of distress.

For the day of YHWH is near upon all the nations.

As you have done, it shall be done to you;

your deeds shall return upon your own head.

For as you have drunk on My holy mountain,

so all the nations shall drink continually;

they shall drink and swallow,

and shall be as though they had never been.

But in Mount Zion there shall be those who escape,

and it shall be holy;

and the house of Jacob shall possess their inheritance.

The house of Jacob shall be a fire,

and the house of Joseph a flame,

and the house of Esau stubble;

they shall burn them and consume them,

and there shall be no survivor for the house of Esau,”

for YHWH has spoken.

Those of the Negev shall possess Mount Esau,

and those of the Shephelah shall possess the land of the Philistines;

they shall possess the land of Ephraim and the land of Samaria,

and Benjamin shall possess Gilead.

The exiles of this host of the children of Israel

shall possess the land of the Canaanites as far as Zarephath,

and the exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad

shall possess the cities of the Negev.

Deliverers shall go up to Mount Zion

to govern Mount Esau,

and the kingdom shall be YHWH’s.