Chapter 1

  The vision of Abdias. Thus saith the Lord God to Edom: We have heard a rumour from the Lord, and he hath sent an ambassador to the nations: Arise, and let us rise up to battle against him.  

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  Behold I have made thee small among the nations: thou art exceeding contemptible.  

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  The pride of thy heart hath lifted thee up, who dwellest in the clefts of the rocks, and settest up thy throne on high: who sayest in thy heart: Who shall bring me down to the ground ?  

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  Though thou be exalted as an eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars: thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord.  

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  If thieves had gone in to thee, if robbers by night, how wouldst thou have held thy peace? would they not have stolen till they had enough ? if the grapegatherers had come in to thee, would they not have left thee at the least a cluster?  

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  How have they searched Esau, how have they sought out his hidden things?  

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  They have sent thee out even to the border: all the men of thy confederacy have deceived thee: the men of thy peace have prevailed against thee: they that eat with thee shall lay snares under thee: there is no wisdom in him.  

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  Shall not I in that day, saith the Lord, destroy the wise out of Edom, and understanding out of the mount of Esau ?  

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  And thy valiant men of the south shall be afraid, that man may be cut off from the mount of Esau.  

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  For the slaughter, and for the iniquity against thy brother Jacob, confusion shall cover thee, and thou shalt perish for ever.  

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  In the day when thou stoodest against him, when strangers carried away his army captive, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem: thou also wast as one of them.  

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  But thou shalt not look on in the day of thy brother, in the day of his leaving his country: and thou shalt not rejoice over the children of Juda, in the day of their destruction: and thou shalt not magnify thy mouth in the day of distress.  

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  Neither shalt thou enter into the gate of my people in the day of their ruin: neither shalt thou also look on in his evils in the day of his calamity: and thou shalt not be sent out against his army in the day of his desolation.  

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  Neither shalt thou stand in the crossways to kill them that flee: and thou shalt not shut up them that remain of him in the day of tribulation.  

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  For the day of the Lord is at hand upon all nations: as thou hast done, so shall it be done to thee: he will turn thy reward upon thy own head.  

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  For as you have drunk upon my holy mountain, so all nations shall drink continually: and they shall drink, and sup up, and they shall be as though they were not.  

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  And in mount Sion shall be salvation, and it shall be holy, and the house of Jacob shall possess those that possessed them.  

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  And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau stubble: and they shall be kindled in them, and shall devour them: and there shall be no remains of the house of Esau, for the Lord hath spoken it.  

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  And they that are toward the south, shall inherit the mount of Esau, and they that are in the plains, the Philistines: and they shall possess the country of Ephraim, and the country of Samaria: and Benjamin shall possess Galaad.  

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  And the captivity of this host of the children of Israel, all the places of the Chanaanites even to Sarepta: and the captivity of Jerusalem that is in Bospho- rus, shall possess the cities of the south.  

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  And saviours shall come up into mount Sion to judge the mount of Esau: and the kingdom shall be for the Lord.  

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