October 6

Obadiah 1 — Jonah 4:11

Obadiah

1 The vision of Obadiah:

This is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said regarding Edom: “There is a report that we have heard from Jehovah, and there is an envoy that has been sent among the nations, ‘Rise up, YOU people, and let us rise up against her in battle.’”

2 “Look! Small is what I have made you among the nations. You are despised very much. 3 The presumptuousness of your heart is what has deceived you, you who are residing in the retreats of the crag, the height where he dwells, saying in his heart, ‘Who will bring me down to [the] earth?’ 4 If you should make your position high like the eagle, or if among the stars there were a placing of your nest, down from there I would bring you,” is the utterance of Jehovah.

5 “If it were thieves that came in to you, if despoilers [came in] by night, to what extent would you have been silenced? Would they not steal as much as they wanted? Or if it were grape gatherers that came in to you, would they not let some gleanings remain? 6 O the extent to which those of Esau have been searched out! [How] his concealed treasures have been sought out! 7 As far as the boundary they have sent you. The very men in covenant with you have all deceived you. The men at peace with you have prevailed against you. Those [eating] food with you will place a net under you as one in whom there is no discernment. 8 Will it not be in that day?” is the utterance of Jehovah.

“And I shall certainly destroy the wise ones out of Edom, and discernment out of the mountainous region of Esau. 9 And your mighty men must become terrified, O Teman, for the reason that each one will be cut off from the mountainous region of Esau, because of a killing. 10 Because of the violence to your brother Jacob, shame will cover you, and you will have to be cut off to time indefinite. 11 In the day when you stood off on the side, in the day when strangers took his military force into captivity and [when] outright foreigners entered his gate and over Jerusalem they cast lots, you also were like one of them.

12 “And you ought not to watch the sight in the day of your brother, in the day of his misfortune; and you ought not to rejoice at the sons of Judah in the day of their perishing; and you ought not to maintain a big mouth in the day of [their] distress. 13 You ought not to come into the gate of my people in the day of their disaster. You, even you, ought not to peer at his calamity in the day of his disaster; and you ought not to thrust out a hand upon his wealth in the day of his disaster. 14 And you ought not to stand at the parting of the ways, in order to cut off his escapees; and you ought not to hand over his survivors in the day of distress. 15 For the day of Jehovah against all the nations is near. In the way that you have done, it will be done to you. Your sort of treatment will return upon your own head. 16 For in the way that YOU people have drunk upon my holy mountain, all the nations will keep drinking constantly. And they will certainly drink and gulp down and become as though they had never happened to be.

17 “And in Mount Zion is where those escaping will prove to be, and it must become something holy; and the house of Jacob must take possession of the things for them to possess. 18 And the house of Jacob must become a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau as stubble; and they must set them ablaze and devour them. And there will prove to be no survivor to the house of Esau; for Jehovah himself has spoken [it]. 19 And they must take possession of the Negeb, even of the mountainous region of Esau, and of the Shephelah, even of the Philistines. And they must take possession of the field of Ephraim and of the field of Samaria; and Benjamin [must take possession of] Gilead. 20 And as for the exiles of this rampart, to the sons of Israel will belong what the Canaanites [possessed] as far as Zarephath. And the exiles of Jerusalem, who were in Sepharad, will take possession of the cities of the Negeb.

21 “And saviors will certainly come up onto Mount Zion, in order to judge the mountainous region of Esau; and the kingship must become Jehovah’s.”

Jonah

1 And the word of Jehovah began to occur to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying: 2 “Get up, go to Nineveh the great city, and proclaim against her that their badness has come up before me.”

3 And Jonah proceeded to get up and run away to Tarshish from before Jehovah; and he finally came down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid its fare and went down into it, in order to go with them to Tarshish from before Jehovah.

4 And Jehovah himself hurled forth a great wind at the sea, and there came to be a great tempest on the sea; and as for the ship, it was about to be wrecked. 5 And the mariners began to fear and to call for aid, each one to his god. And they kept hurling out the articles that were in the ship to the sea, in order to lighten [it] of them. But Jonah himself had gone down to the innermost parts of the decked vessel, and he proceeded to lie down and go fast asleep. 6 At length the ship captain came near to him and said to him: “What is the matter with you, sleeper? Get up, call out to your god! Perhaps the [true] God will show himself caring about us, and we shall not perish.”

7 And they began to say to one another: “Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account we have this calamity.” And they kept casting lots, and finally the lot fell upon Jonah. 8 So they said to him: “Do tell us, please, on whose account it is that we are having this calamity? What is your work, and from where do you come? What is your country, and from which people are you?”

9 At that he said to them: “I am a Hebrew, and Jehovah the God of the heavens I am fearing, the One who made the sea and the dry land.”

10 And the men began to fear greatly, and they went on to say to him: “What is this that you have done?” For the men had come to know that it was from before Jehovah that he was running away, because he had told them. 11 Finally they said to him: “What should we do to you, in order that the sea may become still for us?” For the sea was continually growing more tempestuous. 12 So he said to them: “Lift me up and hurl me into the sea, and the sea will become still for YOU; because I am aware that it is on my account that this great tempest is upon YOU.” 13 But the men tried to work their way through, in order to bring [the ship] back to the dry land; yet they were unable, because the sea was continually growing more tempestuous against them.

14 And they proceeded to call out to Jehovah and to say: “Ah, now, O Jehovah, may we, please, not perish because of the soul of this man! And do not put upon us innocent blood, since you yourself, O Jehovah, have done according to what you have delighted in!” 15 Then they lifted up Jonah and hurled him into the sea; and the sea began to halt from its raging. 16 At that the men began to fear Jehovah greatly, and so they offered a sacrifice to Jehovah and made vows.

17 Now Jehovah appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, so that Jonah came to be in the inward parts of the fish three days and three nights.


2 Then Jonah prayed to Jehovah his God from the inward parts of the fish 2 and said:

     “Out of my distress I called out to Jehovah, and he proceeded to answer me.

     Out of the belly of Sheol I cried for help.

     You heard my voice.

 3 When you threw me [to] the depths, into the heart of the open sea,

     Then a very river encircled me.

     All your breakers and your waves—over me they passed on.

 4 And as for me, I said, ‘I have been driven away from in front of your eyes!

     How shall I gaze again upon your holy temple?’

 5 Waters encircled me clear to [the] soul; the watery deep itself kept enclosing me.

    Weeds were wound around my head.

 6 To the bottoms of [the] mountains I went down.

    As for the earth, its bars were upon me for time indefinite.

    But out of [the] pit you proceeded to bring up my life, O Jehovah my God.

 7 When my soul fainted away within me, Jehovah was the One whom I remembered.

    Then my prayer came in to you, into your holy temple. 

 8 As for those who are observing the idols of untruth, they leave their own loving-kindness.

 9 But as for me, with the voice of thanksgiving I will sacrifice to you.

    What I have vowed, I will pay. Salvation belongs to Jehovah.”

10 In time Jehovah commanded the fish, so that it vomited out Jonah onto the dry land.

3 Then the word of Jehovah occurred to Jonah the second time, saying: 2 “Get up, go to Nineveh the great city, and proclaim to her the proclamation that I am speaking to you.”

3 At that, Jonah got up and went to Nineveh in accord with the word of Jehovah. Now Nineveh herself proved to be a city great to God, with a walking distance of three days. 4 Finally Jonah started to enter into the city the walking distance of one day, and he kept proclaiming and saying: “Only forty days more, and Nineveh will be overthrown.”

5 And the men of Nineveh began to put faith in God, and they proceeded to proclaim a fast and to put on sackcloth, from the greatest one of them even to the least one of them. 6 When the word reached the king of Nineveh, then he rose up from his throne and put off his official garment from himself and covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the ashes. 7 Furthermore, he had the cry made, and he had it said in Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his great ones, saying:

“No man and no domestic animal, no herd and no flock, should taste anything at all. None should take food. Even water they should not drink. 8 And let them cover themselves with sackcloth, man and domestic animal; and let them call out to God with strength and come back, each one from his bad way and from the violence that was in their hands. 9 Who is there knowing whether the [true] God may turn back and actually feel regret and turn back from his burning anger, so that we may not perish?”

10 And the [true] God got to see their works, that they had turned back from their bad way; and so the [true] God felt regret over the calamity that he had spoken of causing to them; and he did not cause [it].

4 To Jonah, though, it was highly displeasing, and he got to be hot with anger. 2 Hence he prayed to Jehovah and said: “Ah, now, O Jehovah, was not this an affair of mine, while I happened to be on my own ground? That is why I went ahead and ran away to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a God gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness, and feeling regret over the calamity. 3 And now, O Jehovah, take away, please, my soul from me, for my dying is better than my being alive.”

4 In turn Jehovah said: “Have you rightly become hot with anger?”

5 Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city; and gradually he made for himself there a booth, that he might sit under it in the shade until he would see what would become of the city. 6 Accordingly Jehovah God appointed a bottle-gourd plant, that it should come up over Jonah, in order to become a shade over his head, to deliver him from his calamitous state. And Jonah began to rejoice greatly over the bottle-gourd plant.

7 But the [true] God appointed a worm at the ascending of the dawn on the next day, that it should strike the bottle-gourd plant; and it gradually dried up. 8 And it came about that, as soon as the sun shone forth, God also went on to appoint a parching east wind, and the sun kept striking upon the head of Jonah, so that he was swooning away; and he kept asking that his soul might die, and he repeatedly said: “My dying off is better than my being alive.”

9 And God proceeded to say to Jonah: “Have you rightly become hot with anger over the bottle-gourd plant?”

At that he said: “I have rightly become hot with anger, to the point of death.” 10 But Jehovah said: “You, for your part, felt sorry for the bottle-gourd plant, which you did not toil upon or make get big, which proved to be a mere growth of a night and perished as a mere growth of a night. 11 And, for my part, ought I not to feel sorry for Nineveh the great city, in which there exist more than one hundred and twenty thousand men who do not at all know the difference between their right hand and their left, besides many domestic animals?”