This compendium of various translators of Obadiah brings out the dramatic emphasis of the narrative and can be used when reading the instalments.

I have received a declaration from the Lord, and He has sent forth a message to the nations, to rise and make war upon her.

"Behold I will make you small among the nations; you will be completely dishonoured. The pride of your heart has deceived you, living as you do in the fastnesses of the rocks, building your home on high, and saying in your heart 'Who will bring me down to the ground?' Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though you set your nest among the very stars, yet even from there will I pull you down," says God.

What a downfall is yours!

"If thieves and robbers came to you by night would they have stolen more than they required? If grape-gatherers came to you, would they not have left some gleanings?

But now, what a pillaging of Esau there has been, what a rifling of all his treasures!

Your very allies have betrayed you and brought you to the ground; your accomplices have deceived you and overcome you, and your most trusted friends have set a trap for you that you had not the sense to perceive."

"In that day," says God, "I will destroy the wise men out of Edom, and the men of understanding out of Mount Esau. The powerful men of Teman will be dismayed, for all the men of Esau will be cut off. Because of the wrongs you have perpetrated upon your brother Jacob you will be cut off for ever.

"On the day that you stood aside when aliens carried off Jacob's possessions and foreigners entered his land, casting lots for the possession of Jerusalem, you allied yourself with them. You should not have exulted over your brother's fate in his day of misfortune or rejoice at the ruin of the people of Judah, nor have boasted yourself in the day of their distress, nor taken possession of My people's territory in the day of their calamity, nor robbed them of their goods, nor stood in the road to intercept the fugitives, nor delivered the survivors into the hands of their enemies.

And now the day of the Lord is at hand upon all the nations. As you have done, so it shall be done unto you; your deeds will return upon your own head. As you have drunk the intoxicating cup upon My holy mountain, so shall all the nations round about drink, and stagger, and be as if they no longer exist.

But on Mount Zion there shall be those who have escaped, and it shall be a sanctuary, and the House of Jacob shall possess it in peace.

"The House of Jacob shall be a fire, the House of Joseph a flame, and the House of Esau shall be as stubble, which they shall ignite and consume until nothing is left of the House of Esau."

That is what God has decreed!

Then the people of the southern desert shall inherit the Mount of Esau, and the people of the sea-side plain, the land of the Philistines. Ephraim shall inherit Samaria, and Benjamin shall inherit Gilead. The Israelite exiles in Halah shall inherit Phoenicia as far as Zarephath, and the Jerusalem exiles in Sepharad shall inherit the cities of the desert.

And those who have escaped shall come from Mount Zion to rule the Mount of Esau, and the Kingdom shall be the Lord's.