Obadiah 1

1 ¹The vision of Obadiah. This is what the Sovereign Father says about Edom: We have heard a message from our Father, and an envoy sent among the nations — "Rise up! Let us rise against her for battle!

²Look, I will make you small among the nations; you will be utterly despised.' ³The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rock, whose home is the heights, who say to yourself, 'Who can bring me down to the ground?' ^a a v3 Edom's people built their capital city among the dramatic rose-red rock cliffs of what is now southern Jordan — a location they believed was unassailable. ⁴Though you soar like the eagle, though you set your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares our Father. ⁵'If thieves came to you, if plunderers came by night — how you have been destroyed! — wouldn't they steal only what they wanted? If grape-pickers came to you, wouldn't they leave some grapes behind? ⁶How Esau has been ransacked, his hidden treasures plundered! ⁷All your allies have driven you to the border; those who were at peace with you have deceived you and overpowered you; those who shared your table have set a trap beneath you — and you don't even see it. ⁸Will I not on that day,' declares our Father, 'destroy the wise men of Edom and wipe out understanding from the mountain of Esau? ⁹Your warriors will be shattered, Teman, so that everyone on the mountain of Esau will be cut down in the slaughter. ^b b v9 Teman was a region of Edom; here it stands for the whole nation. ¹⁰Because of the violence you did to your brother Jacob, shame will cover you, and you will be cut off forever.

¹¹"On the day you stood by and did nothing, on the day strangers carried off his wealth and foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem — you too were like one of them. ¹²But do not gloat over your brother in the day of his misfortune; do not rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their ruin; do not boast loudly in the day of distress. ¹³Do not enter the gate of my people in the day of their calamity; you of all people, do not gloat over his disaster in the day of his calamity; do not loot his wealth in the day of his calamity. ¹⁴Do not stand at the crossroads to cut down his fugitives; do not hand over his survivors in the day of distress.

¹⁵"For the day of our Father is near for all the nations. As you have done, it will be done to you; your deeds will come back on your own head. ¹⁶For as you drank on my holy mountain, so all the nations will drink continually; they will drink and swallow and become as though they had never been. ¹⁷But on Mount Zion there will be deliverance, and it will be holy, and the house of Jacob will possess their inheritance. ¹⁸The house of Jacob will be a fire and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau will be stubble; they will burn it and consume it, and there will be no survivor of the house of Esau, for our Father has spoken.'"

¹⁹Those of the Negev will possess the mountain of Esau, and those of the foothills the land of the Philistines; they will possess the land of Ephraim and the land of Samaria, and Benjamin will possess Gilead. ²⁰The exiles of this army of the people of Israel will possess the land of the Canaanites as far as Zarephath, and the exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad will possess the cities of the Negev. ^c c v20 Sepharad was a distant place of Jewish exile; its exact location is unknown. ²¹Deliverers will go up to Mount Zion to rule the mountain of Esau, and the kingdom will belong to our Father. ^d d v21 Obadiah closes with our Father's reign — the same reign Jesus announced and taught us to pray for: "Your kingdom come."