The Destruction of Edom

This 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!”—

“Behold, I will make you small among the nations;

you will be deeply despised.

The 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?’

Though you soar like the eagle

and make your nest among the stars,

even from there I will bring you down,”

declares the LORD.

“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?

But how Esau will be pillaged,

his hidden treasures sought out!

All 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.

In that day, declares the LORD,

will I not destroy the wise men of Edom

and the men of understanding

in the mountains of Esau?

Then your mighty men, O Teman,

will be terrified,

so that everyone in the mountains of Esau

will be cut down in the slaughter.

Because of the violence against your brother Jacob,

you will be covered with shame

and cut off forever.

On 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.

But 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.

You 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.

Nor should you stand at the crossroads

to cut off their fugitives,

nor deliver up their survivors

in the day of their distress.

For 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.

For 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.

But on Mount Zion there will be deliverance,

and it will be holy,

and the house of Jacob

will reclaim their possession.

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 will set it ablaze and consume it.

Therefore no survivor will remain

from the house of Esau.”

For the LORD has spoken.

Those 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.

And 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.

The deliverers will ascend Mount Zion

to rule over the mountains of Esau.

And the kingdom will belong to the LORD.