Obadiah 1

Berean Standard Bible

Chapter summary

The Lord God reveals a vision to Obadiah regarding Edom, announcing that the nations will rise up to battle against her and reduce her to a despised status. Despite Edom dwelling in high rocky clefts and trusting in their pride, the Lord declares He will bring them down, resulting in total pillage by allies and the destruction of their wise men and mighty warriors in Teman. This judgment comes upon Edom because of their violence and betrayal toward their brother Jacob, specifically citing their gloating, looting, and capturing of fugitives during the destruction of Jerusalem. In contrast, the Lord states that Mount Zion will experience deliverance, and the house of Jacob will consume the house of Esau like a blazing fire. Finally, Israelites and exiles will repossess the surrounding lands, including the mountains of Esau, and the kingdom will belong to the Lord.

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Words of Jesus in red

¹This is the vision of Obadiah: This is what the Lord GOD says about Edom— We have heard a message from the LORD; an envoy has been sent among the nations to say, “Rise up, and let us go to battle against her!”— ²“Behold, I will make you small among the nations; you will be deeply despised. ³The pride of your heart has deceived you, O dwellers in the clefts of the rocks whose habitation is the heights, who say in your heart, ‘Who can bring me down to the ground?’ ⁴Though you soar like the eagle and make your nest among the stars, even from there I will bring you down,” declares the LORD. ⁵“If thieves came to you, if robbers by night— oh, how you will be ruined— would they not steal only what they wanted? If grape gatherers came to you, would they not leave some gleanings? ⁶But how Esau will be pillaged, his hidden treasures sought out! ⁷All the men allied with you will drive you to the border; the men at peace with you will deceive and overpower you. Those who eat your bread will set a trap for you without your awareness of it. ⁸In that day, declares the LORD, will I not destroy the wise men of Edom and the men of understanding in the mountains of Esau? ⁹Then your mighty men, O Teman, will be terrified, so that everyone in the mountains of Esau will be cut down in the slaughter. ¹⁰Because of the violence against your brother Jacob, you will be covered with shame and cut off forever. ¹¹On the day you stood aloof while strangers carried off his wealth and foreigners entered his gate and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were just like one of them. ¹²But you should not gloat in that day, your brother’s day of misfortune, nor rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their destruction, nor boast proudly in the day of their distress. ¹³You should not enter the gate of My people in the day of their disaster, nor gloat over their affliction in the day of their disaster, nor loot their wealth in the day of their disaster. ¹⁴Nor should you stand at the crossroads to cut off their fugitives, nor deliver up their survivors in the day of their distress. ¹⁵For the Day of the LORD is near for all the nations. As you have done, it will be done to you; your recompense will return upon your own head. ¹⁶For as you drank on My holy mountain, so all the nations will drink continually. They will drink and gulp it down; they will be as if they had never existed. ¹⁷But on Mount Zion there will be deliverance, and it will be holy, and the house of Jacob will reclaim their possession. ¹⁸Then 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 will set it ablaze and consume it. Therefore no survivor will remain from the house of Esau.” For the LORD has spoken. ¹⁹Those from the Negev will possess the mountains of Esau; those from the foothills will possess the land of the Philistines. They will occupy the fields of Ephraim and Samaria, and Benjamin will possess Gilead. ²⁰And the exiles of this host of the Israelites will possess the land of the Canaanites as far as Zarephath; and the exiles from Jerusalem who are in Sepharad will possess the cities of the Negev. ²¹The deliverers will ascend Mount Zion to rule over the mountains of Esau. And the kingdom will belong to the LORD.

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Louis Segond 1910 and Berean Standard Bible: public domain. Cross references: open-cross-ref, Creative Commons BY 4.0.