and He declared to her: “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.”
And I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will descend from her.”
And they blessed Rebekah and said to her, “Our sister, may you become the mother of thousands upon thousands. May your offspring possess the gates of their enemies.”
May peoples serve you and nations bow down to you. May you be the master of your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed, and those who bless you be blessed.” ... You shall live by the sword and serve your brother. But when you rebel, you will tear his yoke from your neck.”
Amaziah, however, summoned his strength and led his troops to the Valley of Salt, where he struck down 10,000 men of Seir, and the army of Judah also captured 10,000 men alive. They took them to the top of a cliff and threw them down so that all were dashed to pieces.
Moab is My washbasin; upon Edom I toss My sandal; over Philistia I shout in triumph.” Who will bring me to the fortified city? Who will lead me to Edom?
For with one mind they plot together, they form an alliance against You— the tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites, of Moab and the Hagrites, of Gebal, Ammon, and Amalek, of Philistia with the people of Tyre. Even Assyria has joined them, lending strength to the sons of Lot. Selah Do to them as You did to Midian, as to Sisera and Jabin at the River Kishon, who perished at Endor and became like dung on the ground. Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb, and all their princes like Zebah and Zalmunna, who said, “Let us possess for ourselves the pastures of God.” Make them like tumbleweed, O my God, like chaff before the wind. As fire consumes a forest, as a flame sets the mountains ablaze, so pursue them with Your tempest, and terrify them with Your storm.
Come near, O nations, to listen; pay attention, O peoples. Let the earth hear, and all that fills it, the world and all that springs from it. The LORD is angry with all the nations and furious with all their armies. He will devote them to destruction; He will give them over to slaughter. Their slain will be left unburied, and the stench of their corpses will rise; the mountains will flow with their blood. All the stars of heaven will be dissolved. The skies will be rolled up like a scroll, and all their stars will fall like withered leaves from the vine, like foliage from the fig tree. When My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens, then it will come down upon Edom, upon the people I have devoted to destruction. The sword of the LORD is bathed in blood. It drips with fat—with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah, a great slaughter in the land of Edom. And the wild oxen will fall with them, the young bulls with the strong ones. Their land will be drenched with blood, and their soil will be soaked with fat. For the LORD has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion. Edom’s streams will be turned to tar, and her soil to sulfur; her land will become a blazing pitch. It will not be quenched—day or night. Its smoke will ascend forever. From generation to generation it will lie desolate; no one will ever again pass through it. The desert owl and screech owl will possess it, and the great owl and raven will dwell in it. The LORD will stretch out over Edom a measuring line of chaos and a plumb line of destruction. No nobles will be left to proclaim a king, and all her princes will come to nothing. Her towers will be overgrown with thorns, her fortresses with thistles and briers. She will become a haunt for jackals, an abode for ostriches. The desert creatures will meet with hyenas, and one wild goat will call to another. There the night creature will settle and find her place of repose. There the owl will make her nest; she will lay and hatch her eggs and gather her brood under her shadow. Even there the birds of prey will gather, each with its mate. Search and read the scroll of the LORD: Not one of these will go missing, not one will lack her mate, because He has ordered it by His mouth, and He will gather them by His Spirit. He has allotted their portion; His hand has distributed it by measure. They will possess it forever; they will dwell in it from generation to generation.
Who is this coming from Edom, from Bozrah with crimson-stained garments? Who is this robed in splendor, marching in the greatness of His strength? “It is I, proclaiming vindication, mighty to save.” Why are Your clothes red, and Your garments like one who treads the winepress? “I have trodden the winepress alone, and no one from the nations was with Me. I trampled them in My anger and trod them down in My fury; their blood spattered My garments, and all My clothes were stained. For the day of vengeance was in My heart, and the year of My redemption had come. I looked, but there was no one to help; I was appalled that no one assisted. So My arm brought Me salvation, and My own wrath upheld Me. I trampled the nations in My anger; in My wrath I made them drunk and poured out their blood on the ground.”
Concerning Edom, this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Is there no longer wisdom in Teman? Has counsel perished from the prudent? Has their wisdom decayed? Turn and run! Lie low, O dwellers of Dedan, for I will bring disaster on Esau at the time I punish him. If grape gatherers came to you, would they not leave some gleanings? Were thieves to come in the night, would they not steal only what they wanted? But I will strip Esau bare; I will uncover his hiding places, and he will be unable to conceal himself. His descendants will be destroyed along with his relatives and neighbors, and he will be no more. Abandon your orphans; I will preserve their lives. Let your widows trust in Me.” For this is what the LORD says: “If those who do not deserve to drink the cup must drink it, can you possibly remain unpunished? You will not go unpunished, for you must drink it too. For by Myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, that Bozrah will become a desolation, a disgrace, a ruin, and a curse, and all her cities will be in ruins forever.” I have heard a message from the LORD; an envoy has been sent to the nations: “Assemble yourselves to march against her! Rise up for battle!” “For behold, I will make you small among nations, despised among men. The terror you cause and the pride of your heart have deceived you, O dwellers in the clefts of the rocks, O occupiers of the mountain summit. Though you elevate your nest like the eagle, even from there I will bring you down,” declares the LORD. “Edom will become an object of horror. All who pass by will be appalled and will scoff at all her wounds. As Sodom and Gomorrah were overthrown along with their neighbors,” says the LORD, “no one will dwell there; no man will abide there. Behold, one will come up like a lion from the thickets of the Jordan to the watered pasture. For in an instant I will chase Edom from her land. Who is the chosen one I will appoint for this? For who is like Me, and who can challenge Me? What shepherd can stand against Me?” Therefore hear the plans that the LORD has drawn up against Edom and the strategies He has devised against the people of Teman: Surely the little ones of the flock will be dragged away; certainly their pasture will be made desolate because of them. At the sound of their fall the earth will quake; their cry will resound to the Red Sea. Look! An eagle will soar and swoop down, spreading its wings over Bozrah. In that day the hearts of Edom’s mighty men will be like the heart of a woman in labor.
This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because Edom acted vengefully against the house of Judah, and in so doing incurred grievous guilt, therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: I will stretch out My hand against Edom and cut off from it both man and beast. I will make it a wasteland, and from Teman to Dedan they will fall by the sword. I will take My vengeance on Edom by the hand of My people Israel, and they will deal with Edom according to My anger and wrath. Then they will know My vengeance, declares the Lord GOD.’
Moreover, the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Son of man, set your face against Mount Seir and prophesy against it, and declare that this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, I am against you, O Mount Seir. I will stretch out My hand against you and make you a desolate waste. I will turn your cities into ruins, and you will become a desolation. Then you will know that I am the LORD. Because you harbored an ancient hatred and delivered the Israelites over to the sword in the time of their disaster at the final stage of their punishment, therefore as surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I will give you over to bloodshed and it will pursue you. Since you did not hate bloodshed, it will pursue you. I will make Mount Seir a desolate waste and will cut off from it those who come and go. I will fill its mountains with the slain; those killed by the sword will fall on your hills, in your valleys, and in all your ravines. I will make you a perpetual desolation, and your cities will not be inhabited. Then you will know that I am the LORD. Because you have said, ‘These two nations and countries will be ours, and we will possess them,’ even though the LORD was there, therefore as surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I will treat you according to the anger and jealousy you showed in your hatred against them, and I will make Myself known among them when I judge you. Then you will know that I, the LORD, have heard every contemptuous word you uttered against the mountains of Israel when you said, ‘They are desolate; they are given to us to devour!’ You boasted against Me with your mouth and multiplied your words against Me. I heard it Myself! This is what the Lord GOD says: While the whole earth rejoices, I will make you desolate. As you rejoiced when the inheritance of the house of Israel became desolate, so will I do to you. You will become a desolation, O Mount Seir, and so will all of Edom. Then they will know that I am the LORD.
This is what the LORD says: “For three transgressions of Edom, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because he pursued his brother with the sword and stifled all compassion; his anger raged continually, and his fury flamed incessantly. So I will send fire upon Teman to consume the citadels of Bozrah.”
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!”— “Behold, I will make you small among the nations; you will be deeply despised. 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?’ Though you soar like the eagle and make your nest among the stars, even from there I will bring you down,” declares the LORD. “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? But how Esau will be pillaged, his hidden treasures sought out! 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. 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? Then your mighty men, O Teman, will be terrified, so that everyone in the mountains of Esau will be cut down in the slaughter. Because of the violence against your brother Jacob, you will be covered with shame and cut off forever. 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. 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. 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. Nor should you stand at the crossroads to cut off their fugitives, nor deliver up their survivors in the day of their distress. 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. 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.
“I have loved you,” says the LORD. But you ask, “How have You loved us?” “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the LORD. “Yet Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated, and I have made his mountains a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.” Though Edom may say, “We have been devastated, but we will rebuild the ruins,” this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called the Land of Wickedness, and a people with whom the LORD is indignant forever. You will see this with your own eyes, and you yourselves will say, ‘The LORD is great—even beyond the borders of Israel.’”
Not only that, but Rebecca’s children were conceived by one man, our father Isaac. Yet before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad, in order that God’s plan of election might stand, not by works but by Him who calls, she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” So it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”