Obadiah 19-21

Contemporary English Version

¹⁹The people of Israel
who live in the Southern Desert
    will take the land of Edom.
Those who live in the hills
will capture Philistia,
    Ephraim, and Samaria.
And the tribe of Benjamin
    will conquer Gilead.

²⁰Those who return from captivity
will control Phoenicia
    as far as Zarephath.^[a]
Captives from Jerusalem
    who were taken to Sepharad^[b]
will capture the towns
    of the Southern Desert.
²¹Those the Lord has saved
will live on Mount Zion
    and rule over Edom.^[c]
Then the kingdom will belong
    to the Lord.

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Footnotes

20 Those who return … Zarephath: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.
20 Sepharad: Possibly the city of Sardis, the capital of Lydia, a country north and west of Media. This would refer to those captives from Judah who had been taken beyond the kingdom of Babylonia.
21 Those the Lord … Edom: Or “Leaders on (from) Mount Zion will save the people and rule over Edom.”

Obadiah 19-21

New International Version

¹⁹People from the Negev will occupy
    the mountains of Esau,
and people from the foothills will possess
    the land of the Philistines.^(A)
They will occupy the fields of Ephraim and Samaria,^(B)
    and Benjamin^(C) will possess Gilead.
²⁰This company of Israelite exiles who are in Canaan
    will possess the land as far as Zarephath;^(D)
the exiles from Jerusalem who are in Sepharad
    will possess the towns of the Negev.^(E)
²¹Deliverers^(F) will go up on^[a] Mount Zion
    to govern the mountains of Esau.
    And the kingdom will be the Lord’s.^(G)