The Destruction of Edom (Jeremiah 49:7–22)
1 UDB This is a message that Yahweh our God gave to me, Obadiah, about the Edom people. Yahweh our God has told me this about the people of Edom: "I, Yahweh, have sent a messenger to other nations, telling them to prepare to go and attack Edom." BSB BSB: 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!”—
2 UDB And Yahweh says this to the people of Edom: "I will soon cause you to become the weakest and most despised nation on the earth. BSB BSB: “Behold, I will make you small among the nations; you will be deeply despised.
3 UDB Your capital city is high in the rocky cliffs, and you are very proud; you think that you are safe because no army can attack you, but you have deceived yourselves. BSB BSB: 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?’
4 UDB And I tell you that even if you had wings and could fly higher than eagles fly, and if you could make your homes among the stars, I would bring you crashing down from there. BSB BSB: Though you soar like the eagle and make your nest among the stars, even from there I will bring you down,” declares the LORD.
5 UDB When thieves break into someone's house during the night, they certainly steal only the things that they want. And people who pick grapes always leave a few grapes on the vines. But your country will be completely destroyed! BSB BSB: “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?
6 UDB Everything that is valuable will be taken away. Your enemies will find and take away even the valuable things that you have hidden. BSB BSB: But how Esau will be pillaged, his hidden treasures sought out!
7 UDB All your allies will turn against you, and they will force you to leave your country. Those with whom you have peace now will trick you and defeat you. Those who eat meals with you now are planning to trap you, and then they will say to you, 'You are not as clever as you thought you were!' BSB BSB: 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.
8 UDB I, Yahweh, declare that at the time that I destroy Edom, I will punish the men who live in those cliffs who thought that they were wise. BSB BSB: 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?
9 UDB The soldiers from Teman town will become terrified; all you people who are descendants of Esau will be wiped out." BSB BSB: Then your mighty men, O Teman, will be terrified, so that everyone in the mountains of Esau will be cut down in the slaughter.
10 UDB "You acted cruelly to your relatives who are descendants of Jacob, the twin brother of your ancestor Esau. So now you will be disgraced, and you will be destroyed forever. BSB BSB: Because of the violence against your brother Jacob, you will be covered with shame and cut off forever.
11 UDB Foreigners entered the gates of Jerusalem and cast lots to share out among themselves the valuable things they found; but you were as bad as those foreigners, because you just stood there and did not help the Israelites. BSB BSB: 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.
12 UDB You should not have gloated about the disaster that the Israelites were experiencing. You should not have been happy when their towns were ruined. You should not have made fun of them when they were suffering. BSB BSB: 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.
13 UDB They are my people, so you should not have entered their city gates when they were experiencing those disasters and you should not have laughed at them. And you should not have taken away their valuable possessions. BSB BSB: 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.
14 UDB You should not have stood at crossroads to catch those who were trying to escape. You should not have captured them and put them into the hands of their enemies when they were experiencing those disasters." BSB BSB: Nor should you stand at the crossroads to cut off their fugitives, nor deliver up their survivors in the day of their distress.
The Deliverance of Israel 15 UDB "There will soon be the time when I, Yahweh, will judge and punish all the nations. And you people of Edom will experience the same disasters that you caused others to experience. The same evil things that you have done to others will happen to you. BSB BSB: 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.
16 UDB It is as though you drank a cup of very bitter liquid on Zion, my sacred hill. But I will punish all the other nations just as severely, and cause them to disappear completely. BSB BSB: 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.
17 UDB But some people in Jerusalem will escape, and Jerusalem will become a very holy place. Then the descendants of Jacob will conquer and possess again the land that truly belongs to them. BSB BSB: But on Mount Zion there will be deliverance, and it will be holy, and the house of Jacob will reclaim their possession.
18 UDB The descendants of Jacob and his son Joseph will be like a fire, and the people of Edom will be like stubble that will be completely burned in that fire. Not one person will remain alive. That will surely happen because I, Yahweh, have said it." BSB BSB: 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.
19 UDB The Israelites who live in the southern Judean wilderness are the ones who will capture Edom. And those who live in the western foothills will capture the region of Phoenicia and the areas of Ephraim and Samaria. And people of the tribe of Benjamin will conquer the region of Gilead. BSB BSB: 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.
20 UDB The great number of the people of Israel who were captured and taken away, they will return to the land, and they will capture the land that was ruled by the people of Canaan, and they will take possession of the land as far north as Zarephath. Those people of Israel who were captured and taken away from Jerusalem, and who live in Sepharad, they will take possession of the cities in the Negev, which is the southern Judean wilderness. BSB BSB: 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.
21 UDB The army of Jerusalem will attack Edom and conquer it, and Yahweh will be their king. BSB BSB: The deliverers will ascend Mount Zion to rule over the mountains of Esau. And the kingdom will belong to the LORD.