B OBADIAH Chapter 1

Title and prologue

1:1a Vision of Obadiah: about Edom.

1:1c I have received a message from Yahweh, a herald has been sent throughout the nations, 'Up! Let us march against this people. Into battle!'

Sentence pronounced on Edom

1:1b The Lord Yahweh says this:

1:2 Now I am going to reduce you among the nations, and make you utterly despised.

1:3 Your pride of heart has led you astray, you whose home is in the holes in the rocks,[*a] who make the heights your dwelling, who say in your heart, 'Who will bring me down to the ground?'

1:4 Though you soared like the eagle, though you set your nest among the stars, I would still fling you down again - it is Yahweh who speaks.

The annihilation of Edom

1:5 If robbers came to you, or plunderers at night, they would steal to their heart's content. If grape-gatherers came to you, they would leave no gleanings behind them. How you have been pillaged!

1:6 How Esau has been looted, his hidden treasures rifled!

1:7 They have driven you right to the frontiers, they have misled you, all your allies. They have deceived you, your fine friends. Those who ate your bread now set traps for you, 'He has no intelligence now'.

1:8 When that day comes - it is Yahweh who speaks - shall I not deprive Edom of sages, the Mount of Esau of intelligence?

1:9 Your warriors, Teman,[*b] will be seized with terror until not a single one is left in the Mount of Esau.

The guilt of Edom

For the slaughter,

1:10 for the violence done to your brother Jacob[*c], shame will cover you and you will vanish for ever.

1:11 On the day you stood by as strangers carried off his riches, as barbarians passed through his gate and cast lots for Jerusalem, you behaved like the rest of them.

1:12 Do not gloat over your brother on the day of his misfortune. Do not exult over the sons of Judah on the day of their ruin. Do not play the braggart on the day of distress.

1:13 Do not pass through the gate of my people on the day of its misfortune. Do not, in your turn, gloat over its disaster on the day of its misfortune. Do not lay a finger on its treasures on the day of its misfortune.

1:14 Do not take your stand at the crossroads to cut off its fugitives. Do not hand over its survivors on the day of distress.

1:15 For the day of Yahweh is near for all the nations. As you have done, so will it be done to you: your deeds will recoil on your own head.

The day of Yahweh. Israel revenged on Edom

1:16 [*d] Yes, as you have drunk on my holy mountain, so will all the nations drink unsparingly; they will drink, and drink deep, and will be as if they had never been.

1:17 But on Mount Zion there will be some who have escaped - it shall become a holy place - and the House of Jacob will despoil its own despoilers.

1:18 The House of Jacob shall be a fire, the House of Joseph[*e] a flame, the House of Esau stubble. They will set it alight and burn it up, and no member of the House of Esau shall survive. Yahweh has spoken.

The new Israel

1:19 Men from the Negeb will occupy the Mount of Esau, men from the Lowlands the country of the Philistines; they will occupy the land of Ephraim and the land of Samaria, and Benjamin will occupy Gilead.

1:20 The exiles from this army, the sons of Israel, will occupy Canaan[*f] as far as Zarephath; and the exiles from Jerusalem now in Sepharad will occupy the town of the Negeb.

1:21 Victorious, they will climb Mount Zion to judge the Mount of Esau, and the sovereignty shall belong to Yahweh.

END OF JB OBADIAH [1 Chapter].