Obadiah 1

¹The vision of Obadiah. Thus said the Lord YHWH concerning Edom: A report we have heard from YHWH, and an envoy among the nations has been sent. Rise up, that we may rise against her for battle!

²Behold, I have made you small among the nations; you are utterly despised.

³The arrogance of your heart has deceived you — you who dwell in the clefts of the rock, in your lofty seat, saying in your heart: Who can bring me down to earth?

⁴Though you soar high like the eagle, and though you set your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down — declares YHWH.

⁵If thieves came to you, if plunderers of the night — how you are cut off! — would they not steal only what they need? If grape-harvesters came to you, would they not leave some gleanings?

⁶How thoroughly Esau will be ransacked, his hidden treasures sought out!

⁷All your covenant partners have sent you to the border; your allies have deceived you and overpowered you. Those who ate your bread set a trap beneath you — there is no understanding in him.

⁸Will I not on that day — declares YHWH — destroy the wise men from Edom, and understanding from the mountain of Esau?

⁹Your warriors will be shattered, O Teman, so that every man from 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 aloof, on the day strangers carried off his army and foreigners entered his gates and cast lots over Jerusalem — you too were like one of them.

¹²You should not have gloated over your brother on the day of his calamity; you should not have rejoiced over the sons of Judah on the day of their destruction; you should not have opened your mouth wide on the day of distress.

¹³You should not have entered the gate of my people on the day of their calamity; you, even you, should not have gloated over their disaster on the day of their calamity; and you should not have laid hands on their wealth on the day of their calamity.

¹⁴You should not have stood at the crossroads to cut down his fugitives; and you should not have handed over his survivors on the day of distress.

¹⁵For the day of YHWH is near upon all the nations. As you have done, it will be done to you; your recompense will return upon your own head.

¹⁶For just as you have drunk on my holy mountain, so all the nations will drink continually; they will drink and swallow, and will be as though they had never existed.

¹⁷But on Mount Zion there will be an escaped remnant, and it will be holy; and the house of Jacob will dispossess those who dispossessed them.

¹⁸The house of Jacob will be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau will be stubble; they will set them ablaze and consume them, so that there will be no survivor for the house of Esau — for YHWH has spoken.

¹⁹Those of the Negeb will possess the mountain of Esau, and those of the Shephelah will possess the Philistines; they will possess the field of Ephraim and the field of Samaria, and Benjamin will possess Gilead.

²⁰And the exiles of this company of the sons of Israel 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 Negeb.

²¹And deliverers will go up on Mount Zion to rule over the mountain of Esau, and the kingdom will belong to YHWH.