Open English Translation OBA Chapter 1

We have heard from Yahweh and a messenger has been sent to the nations, telling them:

Get everything ready then go into battle against Edom.

2 And Yahweh says to Edom:

Listen,

I will make you into an insignificant nation.

≈ You’ll become utterly despised.

3 Your inner pride has deceived you,

you who live on the rocky cliffs,

≈ with your homes up there so high.

You say to yourselves that

no one can bring you down to the ground.

4 If you go up high like an eagle,

≈ even if your nest was up between the stars,

Yahweh declares that his command can bring you down from there.

5 If it was thieves who came to destroy you in the night,

(and yes, you’re going to be destroyed)

they would only steal what they wanted.

Or if it was grape-pickers who came to you,

at least they’d leave behind the smaller grapes.

6 How Esau’s descendants will be looted.

≈ Their hidden treasures will be found and taken.

7 Those who have treaties with you will force you to the border.

≈ Those who talk about peace will deceive you.

≈ Those who eat meals with you will set a trap for you.

You have no idea what’s about to hit you.

8 Yahweh will make a declaration on that day.

The wise people of Edom will be destroyed.

≈ Understanding will disappear from Esau’s hill.

9 And you the city of Teyman, your warriors will be shattered,

≈ so that everyone from Esau’s hill country will be slaughtered.

10 Because of your violence against your brother Yacob’s descendants,

shame will overcome you,

and you’ll be destroyed forever.

11 You just stood and watched on that day when strangers carried away their wealth.

≈ When foreigners entered their gates and took possession of Yerushalem, you wished it was you doing that.

12 You shouldn’t have gloated over your cousins on the day of their misfortune.

≈ And you shouldn’t have celebrated about the destruction of the people of Yehudah.

You shouldn’t have bragged in their time of distress.

13 You shouldn’t have gone into their city at the time of their calamity.

You shouldn’t have gloated—yes, you—over their misery in their time of disaster.

And you women shouldn’t have grabbed their wealth on the day of their catastrophe.

14 You shouldn’t have stood at the crossroads to kill those trying to escape,[ref]

And you shouldn’t have handed-over any survivors that you’d captured in their time of trouble.

15 For all the nations, Yahweh’s day is near,

Just as you’ve done, the same will be done to you.

≈ Your actions will return onto your own head.

16 Because just like how all you Israelis[fn] drank suffering on my holy mountain,

all the nations will drink continually.

They will drink and swallow it down.

They’ll become as if they’d never even existed.

17 But on Mt. Tsiyyon (‘Zion’), there’ll be deliverance,

and it will be holy,

≈ Yisrael’s people will reclaim their possessions.

18 Yisrael’s people will be a fire,

≈ and Yosef’s descendants will be a flame.

None of Esau’s descendants will survive,

because Yahweh has spoken.

19 The people from the Negev will take ownership of Esau’s mountain,

≈ and the people from the Shefelah will take ownership of the Philistines’ land.

They will recapture the Efrayim and Samarian countrysides,

≈ and the people of Benyamin will recapture Gilead.

20 Yisrael’s exiles will take ownership of the Canaanites’ land as far as Tsarefat,

≈ and the exiles from Yerushalem (who are in Sefarad) will take ownership of the cities of the Negev.

21 The rescuers will go up Mt. Tsiyyon/Zion to judge Esau’s mountain.

and Yahweh will be their king.