1 The vision
of Obadiah. Thus says the Lord God to Idumea; I have heard a report from the Lord, and He has sent
forth a message to the nations.
2 Arise, and
let us rise up against her to war.
3 Behold, I
have made you small among the Gentiles: you are greatly dishonored. The pride of your heart has
elated you, dwelling as you do in the holes of the rocks, as
one that exalts his habitation, saying in his heart, Who will bring me down to the ground?
4 If you
should mount up as the eagle, and if you should make your nest among the stars, from there will I
bring you down, says the Lord.
5 If thieves
came in to you, or robbers by night, where would you have been cast away? Would they not have stolen
just enough for themselves? And if grape-gatherers went in to you, would they not leave a gleaning?
6 How has Esau
been searched out, and how have his hidden things been detected?
7 They sent
you to your coasts: all the men of your covenant have withstood you; your allies have prevailed
against you, they have set snares under you: they have no understanding.
8 In that day,
says the Lord, I will destroy the wise men out of Idumea, and understanding out of the mount of
Esau.
9 And your
warriors from Teman shall be dismayed, to the end that man may be cut off from the mount of Esau.
10 Because of the slaughter and the sin committed
against your brother Jacob, shame shall cover you, and you shall be cut off forever.
11 From the
day that you stood in opposition to him, in the days when
foreigners were taking captive his forces, and strangers entered into his gates, and cast lots on
Jerusalem, you also were as one of them.
12 And you
should not have looked on the day of your brother in the day of strangers; nor should you have
rejoiced against the children of Judah in the day of their destruction; neither should you have
boasted in the day of their affliction.
13 Neither
should you have gone into the gates of the people in the day of their troubles; nor yet should you
have looked upon their gathering in the day of their destruction, nor should you have attacked their
host in the day of their perishing.
14 Neither
should you have stood at the opening of their passages, to destroy utterly those of them that were
escaping; neither should you have shut up his fugitives in the day of affliction.
15 For the day
of the Lord is near upon all the Gentiles: as you have done, so shall it be done to you: your
recompense shall be returned on your own head.
16 For as you
have drunk upon My holy mountain, so shall all the nations drink wine; they shall drink, and go
down, and be as if they were not.
17 But on mount Zion there shall be deliverance, and
there shall be a sanctuary; and the house of Jacob shall take for an inheritance those that took
them for an inheritance.
18 And the
house of Jacob shall be fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau shall
be for stubble; and Israel shall flame forth against
them, and shall devour them, and there shall not be a corn field left
to the house of Esau; because the Lord has spoken.
19 And they that
dwell in the south shall inherit the mount of Esau, and they in the plain the Philistines: and
they shall inherit the mount of Ephraim, and the plain of Samaria, and Benjamin, and the land of
Gilead.
20 And this shall
be the domain of the captivity of the children of Israel, the land of the Canaanites as far as
Zarephath; and the captives of Jerusalem shall inherit as
far as Ephratha; they shall inherit the cities of the south.
21 And they that escape shall come up from mount Zion, to take vengeance on the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the Lord’s.