Obadiah 1

¹ Vision of Obadiah: about Edom. I have received a message from Yahweh, a herald has been sentthroughout the nations: 'Up! Let us march against this people. Into battle!' The Lord Yahweh says this:

² Look, I have reduced you to the smal est of nations, you are now beneath contempt.

³ Your proud heart has misled you, you whose home is in the crannies of the Rock, who make theheights your dwel ing, who think to yourself, 'Who can bring me down to earth?'

⁴ Though you soar like an eagle, though you set your nest among the stars, I shall bring you down fromthere!-declares Yahweh.

⁵ If thieves were to come to you (or robbers during the night) surely they would steal only as much asthey wanted? If grape-pickers were to come to you, surely they would leave a few gleanings? But how you havebeen pil aged!

⁶ How Esau has been looted, his hidden treasures routed out!

⁷ Your al ies al pursued you right to the frontier, your confederates kept you in suspense, then got thebetter of you, your own guests laid a trap for you, 'He has quite lost his wits.'

⁸ When that day comes- declares Yahweh- shall I not eliminate sages from Edom and intel igence fromMount Esau?

⁹ Your warriors, Teman, wil be so demoralised that the people of Mount Esau will be massacred to thelast one. For the slaughter,

¹⁰ for the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame wil cover you and you will be annihilated for ever.

¹¹ On the day, when you stood aloof while strangers carried off his riches, while foreigners passedthrough his gate and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were as bad as the rest of them.

¹² Do not feast your eyes on your brother on the day of his misfortune. Do not gloat over the children ofJudah on the day of their ruin. Do not play the braggart on the day of distress.

¹³ Do not enter my people's gate on their day of calamity. Do not, you especial y, feast your eyes on theirsuffering on their day of calamity. Do not touch their possessions on their day of calamity.

¹⁴ Do not wait at the crossroads to annihilate their fugitives. Do not hand over their survivors on the dayof distress.

¹⁵ For the Day of Yahweh is near for al the nations. As you have done, so wil it be done to you: yourdeeds wil recoil on your own head.

¹⁶ Just as you have drunk on my holy mountain, so will al the nations drink continual y, they wil drink,wil drink greedily, but they wil be as though they had never been!

¹⁷ But on Mount Zion wil be those who have escaped -it will be a sanctuary- and the House of Jacob willrecover what is rightful y theirs.

¹⁸ Then the House of Jacob wil be a fire, the House of Joseph a flame, and the House of Esau likestubble. They wil set it alight and burn it up, and no one of the House of Esau wil survive. Yahweh has spoken.

¹⁹ People from the Negeb wil occupy the Mount of Esau, people from the lowlands the country of thePhilistines; they wil occupy Ephraim and Samaria, and Benjamin wil occupy Gilead.

²⁰ The exiles of this army, the sons of Israel, wil have the Canaanites' land as far as Zarephthah, whilethe exiles from Jerusalem now in Sepharad wil have the cities of the Negeb.

²¹ Victorious, they wil climb Mount Zion to rule over Mount Esau, and sovereignty wil be Yahweh's!