Vayishlah

This translation was taken from the JPS Tanakh.

Obadiah 1.1-21

Chapter 1
¹ The prophecy of Obadiah.

We have received tidings from the Lord,
And an envoy has been sent out among the nations:
“Up! Let us rise up against her for battle.”

Thus said my Lord God concerning Edom:
² I will make you least among nations,
You shall be most despised.
³ Your arrogant heart has seduced you,
You who dwell in clefts of the rock,
In your lofty abode.
You think in your heart,
“Who can pull me down to earth?”
⁴ Should you nest as high as the eagle,
Should your eyrie be lodged ‘mong the stars,
Even from there I will pull you down

—declares the Lord.

⁵ If thieves were to come to you,
Marauders by night,
They would steal no more than they needed.
If vintagers came to you,
They would surely leave some gleanings.
How utterly you are destroyed!
⁶ How thoroughly rifled is Esau,
How ransacked his hoards!
⁷ All your allies turned you back
At the frontier;
Your own confederates
Have duped and overcome you;
[Those who ate] your bread
Have planted snares under you.

He is bereft of understanding.
⁸ In that day

—declares the Lord—

I will make the wise vanish from Edom,
Understanding from Esau’s mount.
⁹ Your warriors shall lose heart, O Teman,
And not a man on Esau’s mount
Shall survive the slaughter.

¹⁰ For the outrage to your brother Jacob,
Disgrace shall engulf you,
And you shall perish forever.
¹¹ On that day when you stood aloof,
When aliens carried off his goods,
When foreigners entered his gates
And cast lots for Jerusalem,
You were as one of them.

¹² How could you gaze with glee
On your brother that day,
On his day of calamity!
How could you gloat
Over the people of Judah
On that day of ruin!
How could you loudly jeer
On a day of anguish!
¹³ How could you enter the gate of My people
On its day of disaster,
Gaze in glee with the others
On its misfortune
On its day of disaster,
And lay hands on its wealth
On its day of disaster!
¹⁴ How could you stand at the passes
To cut down its fugitives!
How could you betray those who fled
On that day of anguish!
¹⁵ As you did, so shall it be done to you;
Your conduct shall be requited.

Yea, against all nations
The day of the Lord is at hand.
¹⁶ That same cup that you drank on My Holy Mount
Shall all nations drink evermore,
Drink till their speech grows thick,
And they become as though they had never been.
¹⁷ But on Zion’s mount a remnant shall survive,
And it shall be holy.
The House of Jacob shall dispossess
Those who dispossessed them.
¹⁸ The House of Jacob shall be fire,
And the House of Joseph flame,
And the House of Esau shall be straw;
They shall burn it and devour it,
And no survivor shall be left of the House of Esau
                      —for the Lord has spoken.

¹⁹ Thus they shall possess the Negeb and Mount Esau as well, the Shephelah and Philistia. They shall possess the Ephraimite country and the district of Samaria, and Benjamin along with Gilead. 20 And that exiled force of Israelites [shall possess] what belongs to the Phoenicians as far as Zarephath, while the Jerusalemite exile community of Sepharad shall possess the towns of the Negeb. 21 For liberators shall march up on Mount Zion to wreak judgment on Mount Esau; and dominion shall be the Lord’s.

Taken from Tanakh, The Holy Scriptures, (Philadelphia, Jerusalem: Jewish Publication Society) 1985.
Used by permission of The Jewish Publication Society. Copyright © 1962, 1992
Third Edition by the Jewish Publication Society.
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