Book of Obadiah

Chapter 1

1 The vision of Obadiah. Thus says the Lord God to Idumea: I have heard a report from the Lord, and he has sent out a summons to the nations: Rise up, and let us rise up against her for war.

2 Behold, I have made you least among the nations; you are utterly despised.

3 The pride of your heart has lifted you up, you who dwell in the clefts of the rocks, raising his habitation on high, saying in his heart, "Who will bring me down to the ground?"

4 Though you soar aloft like an eagle, and though you set your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down, says the Lord.

5 If thieves came to you, or robbers by night, where would you have been cast away? Would they not have stolen only what was enough for themselves? And if grape-gatherers came to you, would they not have left gleanings?

6 How Esau has been searched out, and his hidden things seized!

7 All the men of your covenant have sent you away to your borders; they have risen against you; your men of peace have prevailed against you; they have set an ambush beneath you; there is no understanding in them.

8 On that day, says the Lord, I will destroy the wise out of Idumea, and understanding from the mountain of Esau.

9 And your warriors from Teman shall be dismayed, so that a man may be cut off from the mountain of Esau,

10 because of the slaughter and the impiety against your brother Jacob; shame shall cover you, and you shall be cut off forever.

11 From the day you stood in opposition, on the day when foreigners were taking his host captive, and strangers entered his gates and cast lots over Jerusalem, you also were as one of them.

12 And do not gloat over the day of your brother in the day of strangers, and do not rejoice over the sons of Judah in the day of their destruction, and do not boast in the day of distress;

13 nor enter into the gates of the peoples in the day of their troubles, nor gloat, you too, over their assembly in the day of their ruin, nor join in the attack upon their host in the day of their destruction;

14 nor stand at their passes to destroy those of them who escape, nor shut in those of them who flee in the day of distress.

15 For the day of the Lord is near upon all the nations: as you have done, so shall it be done to you; your recompense shall be returned upon your own head.

16 For as you drank upon my holy mountain, so shall all the nations drink wine; they shall drink, and go down, and be as though they had never been.

17 But on Mount Zion there shall be deliverance, and it shall be holy; and the house of Jacob shall take possession of those who took possession of them.

18 And the house of Jacob shall be fire, and the house of Joseph flame, but the house of Esau stubble; and they shall be kindled against them and devour them, and there shall be no fire-bearer in the house of Esau, for the Lord has spoken.

19 And those in the Negev shall inherit the mountain of Esau, and those in the Shephelah the Philistines; and they shall inherit the mountain of Ephraim and the plain of Samaria, and Benjamin, and Gilead.

20 And this is the beginning of the captivity: to the sons of Israel the land of the Canaanites as far as Zarephath, and the captivity of Jerusalem as far as Ephrathah; and they shall inherit the cities of the Negev.

21 And men who have been saved shall go up from Mount Zion to take vengeance on the mountain of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the Lord's.