The vision of Obadiah.
Edom’s Certain Judgment
This is what the Lord God has said about Edom:
a messenger has been sent among the nations:
“Rise up, and let us go to war against her.”[a]
2 Look, I will make you insignificant
among the nations;
you will be deeply despised.
3 Your presumptuous heart has deceived you,
you who live in clefts of the rock[b][c]
in your home on the heights,
who say to yourself,
“Who can bring me down to the ground?”
4 Though you seem to soar[d] like an eagle
and make your nest among the stars,
even from there I will bring you down.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
if marauders by night—
how ravaged you would be!—
wouldn’t they steal only what they wanted?
If grape pickers came to you,
wouldn’t they leave some grapes?
6 How Esau will be pillaged,
his hidden treasures searched out!
7 Everyone who has a treaty with you
will drive you to the border;
everyone at peace with you
will deceive and conquer you.
Those who eat your bread
will set[e] a trap for you.
He will be unaware of it.
8 In that day—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
will I not eliminate the wise ones of Edom
and those who understand
from the hill country of Esau?
9 Teman,[f] your warriors will be terrified
so that everyone from the hill country of Esau
will be destroyed by slaughter.
Edom’s Sins against Judah
10 You will be covered with shame
and destroyed forever
because of violence done to your brother Jacob.
11 On the day you stood aloof,
on the day strangers captured his wealth,[g]
while foreigners entered his gate
and cast lots for Jerusalem,
you were just like one of them.
12 Do not[h] gloat over your brother
in the day of his calamity;
do not rejoice over the people of Judah
in the day of their destruction;
do not boastfully mock[i]
in the day of distress.
13 Do not enter the gate of My people
in the day of their disaster.
Yes, you—do not gloat over their misery
in the day of their disaster
and do not appropriate their possessions
in the day of their disaster.
14 Do not stand at the crossroads[j]
to cut off their fugitives,
and do not hand over their survivors
in the day of distress.
Judgment of the Nations
15 For the Day of the Lord is near,
against all the nations.
As you have done, so it will be done to you;
what you deserve will return on your own head.
16 As you have drunk on My holy mountain,
so all the nations will drink continually.
They will drink and gulp down
and be as though they had never been.
17 But there will be a deliverance on Mount Zion,
and it will be holy;
the house of Jacob will dispossess
those who dispossessed them.[k]
18 Then the house of Jacob will be a blazing fire,
and the house of Joseph, a burning flame,
but the house of Esau will be stubble;
Jacob[l] will set them on fire and consume Edom.[m]
Therefore no survivor will remain
of the house of Esau,
for the Lord has spoken.
Future Blessing for Israel
19 People from the Negev will possess
the hill country of Esau;
those from the Judean foothills will possess
the land of the Philistines.
They[n] will possess
the territories of Ephraim and Samaria,
while Benjamin will possess Gilead.
20 The exiles of the Israelites who are in Halah[o]
and who are among the Canaanites as far as Zarephath
as well as the exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad
will possess the cities of the Negev.
21 Saviors[p] will ascend Mount Zion
to rule over the hill country of Esau,
but the kingdom will be the Lord’s.
Footnotes
- Obadiah 1:1 = Edom
- Obadiah 1:3 Or in Sela; probably = Petra
- Obadiah 1:3 Probably Petra
- Obadiah 1:4 Or to build high
- Obadiah 1:7 Some LXX mss, Sym, Tg, Vg; MT reads They will set your bread as
- Obadiah 1:9 = a region or city in Edom
- Obadiah 1:11 Or forces
- Obadiah 1:12 Or You should not throughout vv. 12-14
- Obadiah 1:12 Lit not make your mouth big
- Obadiah 1:14 Hb obscure
- Obadiah 1:17 DSS, LXX, Syr, Vg, Tg; MT reads Jacob will possess its inheritance
- Obadiah 1:18 Lit they
- Obadiah 1:18 Lit them
- Obadiah 1:19 = The house of Jacob
- Obadiah 1:20 Or of this host of the Israelites; Hb obscure
- Obadiah 1:21 Or Those who have been delivered