1:1 The vision of Obadiah: So says Adonai Yehovah concerning Edom1: We have heard a message from Yehovah, and a messenger is sent among the nations; rise up, and let us rise up against her for battle.
1:2 Look, I have given you to be small among the nations; you are greatly despised.
1:3 The pride2 of your heart has deceived you, dwelling in the clefts of the rock3; his dwelling is lofty, saying in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground?
1:4 Though you rise high as the eagle, and though you set your nest between the stars4, I will bring you down from there, declares Yehovah.
1:5 If thieves came to you, if destroyers by night, how you have been cut off! Would they not have stolen until they had enough? If the grape-gatherers came to you, would they not leave gleanings?
1:6 How Esau is searched out! His hidden things are sought out!
1:7 All the men of your covenant have dismissed you to the border. The men who were at shalom with you have deceived you and have prevailed over you. They are setting your bread as a snare under you; there is no understanding in him.
1:8 Shall I not in that day even destroy the wise out of Edom and understanding out of the mount of Esau? declares Yehovah.
1:9 And your mighty ones, Teman, shall be afraid, so that each man from the mountain of Esau may be cut off by slaughter.
1:10 Shame shall cover you from the violence5 against your brother Ya'akov, and you shall be cut off forever.
1:11 On the day of your standing on the other side, on the day that the strangers took his force captive, and foreigners entered his gates, and cast lots for Yerushalayim, even you were like one of them.
1:12 But you should not have looked on the day of your brother, on the day of his alienation; nor should you have rejoiced over the sons of Yehudah in the day of their destruction; nor should you have enlarged your mouth in the day of distress.
1:13 You should not have entered into My people's gate on the day of his calamity; also you should not have looked on his evil on the day of his calamity, nor should you have sent out against his force in the day of his calamity.
1:14 Nor should you have stood on the crossways to cut off those of him who escaped, nor should you have shut up his survivors in the day of distress.
1:15 For the day of Yehovah is near on all the nations6: As you have done, it shall be done to you; your reward shall return on your head!
1:16 For as you have drunk on My set apart mountain, so all the nations shall continually drink. Yea, they shall drink and shall swallow; and they will be as if they had not been.
1:17 But the ones who escaped shall be on Mount Zion, and it shall be set apart. And the house of Ya'akov shall possess their own possessions.
1:18 And the house of Ya'akov shall be a fire, and the house of Yoseph a flame, and the house of Esau for straw. And they shall burn among them and consume them. And no survivor shall be to the house of Esau, for Yehovah has spoken.
1:19 And those of Negev shall possess the mountain of Esau, and the low country of the Philistines. And they shall possess Ephraim's fields, and Samaria's fields. And Benjamin shall possess Gilead.
1:20 And the exiles of this force shall go to the sons of Yisrael who shall possess the land of the Canaanites to Zarephath; even the exiles of Yerushalayim who are in Sepharad shall possess the cities of the Negev.
1:21 And deliverers shall go up into the mountain of Zion to judge the mountain of Esau, and the kingdom shall be to Yehovah.