OBADIAH

§ Against Edom

°1The Vision of Obadiah.This is what the Lord Yahweh says about Edom:

We have heard news from Yahweh, and a messenger has been sent out to the nations to say, “Rise, let us go against Esau.”

°2 The day has come: you now are small among the nations; you are utterly despised.

°3 Your arrogance has led you astray,

you who live in the clefts of the rock,

you who make the heights your home,

you who say to yourself:

Who can bring me down to the ground?

°4 Though you soar like the eagle, though you make your nests among the stars,

I will bring you down again.

°5 If thieves or plunderers come at night,

what a disaster awaits you then!

Would they not ransack till they had enough? If grape gatherers worked in your vineyard,

would they not leave only gleanings? °6 See how Esau has been looted,

even his hidden treasures pillaged!

°7 You have been driven to the frontiers:

and those were your very friends!

Those who partook of your bread

set for you a trap in secret.

°8 Yahweh declares: Shall I not destroy

the wise men of Edom on that day,

and deprive of sages the mountain of Esau?

°9 Your warriors, O Teman, will be afraid,

and all from Mount Esau will be slaughtered.

°10 For the violence done to Jacob, your brother,

you will be disgraced and destroyed forever.

°11 You stood aloof in waiting

when strangers carried off his wealth,

when foreigners entered his gates

and cast lots for Jerusalem,

you were as guilty as the rest of them.

°12 Do not come to see and gloat

over the misfortune of your brother.

Do not exult over Judah’s ruin,

nor brag on the day of her destruction.

°13 Do not go through the gate of my people

on the day of their disgrace,

nor gloat over them in their misfortune

on the day of their adversity,

nor lay your hands upon their possessions

on the day of their destruction.

°14 Do not wait at the crossroad

to slay their stragglers,

nor betray their survivors

on the day of their disaster.

°15 For the day of Yahweh is near

for every nation.

As you have done to another,

so to you will it be done.

Whatever you have done

will come back upon your head.

°16 For as you have drunk on my holy mountain,

so will the surrounding nation drink,

drink and drink up to the brim…

Then they shall be as if they had never been.

°17 But there will be survivors on Mount Zion

– a holy remnant.

The house of Jacob will take possession

of its own inheritance.

°18 The nation of Jacob will be a fire,

the nation of Joseph a flame;

but those of Esau will be a stubble,

and they will burn and consume them.

And of Esau’s house none will remain, for it is Yahweh who has spoken.

°19 People from the Negeb

will occupy Esau’s mountains;

those from the plains,

the land of the Philistines;

they will occupy Ephraim and Samaria,

and Benjamin will possess Gilead.

°20 The Israelite exiles who are in Canaan

will possess Phoenicia as far as Zarephtah;

the exiles from Jerusalem now in Sepharad

will possess the towns of the Negeb.

°21 Deliverers will ascend Mount Zion

to rule over the mountains of Esau,

– then Yahweh will reign.

The End.