Beginning
Imagine the scene: The Edomites have come with other nations to rob and betray Israel; it looks as though God has allowed Israel’s cousins, the descendants of Isaac through Esau, to steal from His temple and holy city. The Israelites are convinced they have kept Abraham’s covenant with God while the Edomites have forsaken the Lord and His people Israel. Their prayer is for God to provide refuge for those who seek and trust in Him, and to judge their enemies.
1 This is the vision that came to Obadiah:
Listen carefully to what the Eternal Lord says about the nation of Edom.
Learn from their fate.
We have been put on notice through the Eternal’s representative
who was sent to everyone among the nations saying,
“Get up. Get ready to charge against Edom in battle.”
2 Eternal One (to Edom): See how insignificant I will make you compared to other nations;
you will be completely despised by the rest of the world.
3 Your deep pride has blinded you to the truth,
tucked securely in the clefts of the rocks, safely out of reach.
You say to yourself,
“Whose attack can reach up here and bring me down to the ground?”
Edom named its capital city “Rock,” and many of the people there were cave dwellers, virtually unreachable.
4 Even if you fly high as the eagle, believing yourselves strong and free,
and put your nest among the stars,
I will have no trouble bringing you down.
This is declared by the Eternal One.
5 Consider how thoroughly you will be wiped out.
If thieves come to steal from you
And robbers arrive under cover of night,
won’t they take only what they want?
If the grape harvesters arrive,
doesn’t their hasty picking usually leave some fruit in the field for the poor?
6 But Esau, your nation will be ransacked;
there will be nothing left.
Every last treasure you had carefully hidden will be taken.
7 Your supposed allies—every last one—will turn against you;
they will run you out of your own town.
And those who promised you peace
will lie to your face and conquer you.
Even those who shared your bread will ambush you.
You won’t understand what is happening until it is too late.
8 Eternal One: When this day comes,
won’t I destroy the wisest citizens of Edom,
Make all insight vanish from Mount Esau,
and leave all helpless?
9 As for your warriors, great Edomite city of Teman,
they will be routed, shattered.
Their slaughtered bodies will cut off everyone’s path to Mount Esau
10 because of your violent history against your brother Jacob.
Shame will envelop you,
and your nation will be destroyed forever.
11 You just stood there, doing nothing,
while strangers ransacked their city,
While invaders rushed through the gates and divided up Jerusalem for themselves.
You might as well have been one of them.
12 You should never have gloated over your brother’s tragedy that day
or been secretly happy about all their misfortune.
You should never have celebrated the people of Judah’s decimation.
You should never have acted so arrogantly
on the day they suffered so much.
13 You should never have walked through the city gates of My people
on the day of this disaster.
You should never have gloated at their difficulties
on the day of this disaster.
You should never have taken advantage of them and their wealth
on the day of this disaster.
14 You should never have lain in wait along the crossroads
to cut off those trying to escape;
You should never have handed over the handful of survivors to Babylonian captivity
on the day of their great distress.
15 The day of the Eternal’s judgment for all the nations is near.
Whatever evil you have done will be done to you;
Your deeds will come crashing back on your head.
16 Eternal One: Just as you drank to the defeat of My people on My holy mountain,
now you and all the nations around you will always drink excessively.
They will be forced to drink and guzzle a mouthful of suffering,
and it will be as if they never existed.
17 But on Mount Zion will be a place of safety.
Some will escape to that holy hill,
And the people of Jacob will conquer and possess
those who conquered and dispossessed them.
18 The people of Jacob will become a fire
and the family of Joseph a flame.
They will ignite and consume the people of Esau as they execute divine punishment
until only dry stubble remains.
No one from the people of Esau will survive the conflagration.
So declares the Eternal One.
19 Eternal One: The people from the southern desert[a] will take over Mount Esau,
and those from the foothills[b] will flood into the Philistines’ coastal plain.
They will possess the fertile lands of Ephraim and Samaria,
and Benjamin’s people will inhabit Gilead.
20 The army of exiled sons and daughters of Israel will stream back home
and live along the coast and possess the Canaanites as far as Zarephath.
And the exiles of Jerusalem who live in Sepharad
will settle down in the cities and villages of the South.[c]
21 These deliverers will go up to Mount Zion, My holy hill,
and justly rule Mount Esau from there.
And the kingdom they establish will belong to the Eternal One alone.
1 One day the word of the Eternal One came to the prophet Jonah (Amittai’s son).
Eternal One: 2 Get up, and go to that powerful and notorious city of Nineveh. Call out My message against it because the wickedness of its people has come to My attention.
3 In hearing those instructions, Jonah got up and ran toward Tarshish from the Eternal’s presence. He went down to the port at Joppa and found a ship bound for Tarshish. He climbed aboard, paid the fare, and made himself comfortable in the hold of the ship.
The Lord calls Jonah to Nineveh, but instead he runs full speed to Tarshish, a great and wealthy city on the coast of Spain. It is about as far to the west as most Israelites have ever ventured, while Nineveh is about as far to the east as most Israelites have ever gone. Nineveh is a great city and the fiercest enemy of Jonah’s people, so Jonah is afraid and wants to be completely away from this calling and from anyone who may be inclined to go on this ill-fated adventure.
4 Not to be deterred, the Eternal One threw an intense wind at the sea. The violence of the storm put Jonah’s ship in jeopardy of breaking apart. 5 The sailors panicked! They started running back and forth, throwing cargo overboard to lighten the boat; every man, out of desperation, cried to his own deity. Eventually, a sailor found Jonah down in the hold of the ship, where he had lain down and fallen into a deep slumber. 6 When the captain heard, he went down and woke Jonah up.
Captain: How can you sleep so deeply? Get up, and call out to your deity! Maybe your deity will see what is happening and save us from this catastrophe.
Sailors (to one another): 7 You know what we should do? We should cast lots to find out who is ultimately responsible for our distress!
So they cast their lots, and Jonah’s name was chosen.
Sailors: 8 Who are you? We must know who is responsible for this disaster that would swallow us in the sea. What do you do? Where are you from? What country is your home? Whom are you descended from?
Jonah: 9 I am Hebrew, and the God whom I worship is the Eternal One, the God of heaven. He made the sea and the land, so He controls them.
10 After interrogating him, the sailors were terrified because Jonah had told them he was running away from the Eternal’s presence.
Sailors (to Jonah): What have you done? Because of you, we’re all going to be killed.
11 (shouting over the building storm) What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?
Jonah (shouting back): 12 God is using the sea to punish me, so pick me up and throw me into the sea! Then the sea will grow calm again, and you’ll be safe! This is all my fault! This great storm of my God’s anger has built against you because of me!
The sailors fear what will happen to them if they kill one of God’s people.
13 The sailors ignored Jonah’s advice and tried to row back to land. They made no headway because the violence of the storm kept growing.
Sailors (to God): 14 Eternal One! Please, we beg You—do not kill us as if we had murdered this man. And don’t punish us as if we’d killed an innocent person. We understand that You, Eternal One, do as You please.
15 At that, they grabbed Jonah by his arms and legs and threw him overboard. And when they did, the raging sea grew calm. 16 The sailors were even more terrified of the Eternal One. They offered sacrifices to Him and made promises to Him.
17 The Eternal didn’t let Jonah die. He chose a large fish to swallow Jonah; for three days and three nights the prophet Jonah sat safely inside the belly of this fish.
2 To his God, the Eternal, Jonah prayed from inside this great fish.
Jonah reveals in his prayer a change of heart: he thanks God for saving him from the angry sea.
2 Jonah: With desperate cries
I beckoned the Eternal to hear, and He answered me.
From the belly, the place of death, I cried out to You,
and You have responded to my voice.
3 You threw me into the watery depths
and cast me into the middle of the chaotic seas.
The waters closed in around me;
Your waves broke over me;
Your surf swelled as I sank into the depths.
4 But then I said to You,
“I have been driven out from before Your very eyes.
Still, I know I will gaze again on Your holy temple.”
5 The waters swallowed me;
the deep abyss was covering over me.
Seaweeds were wrapped around my head, trapping me
6 as I sank down to where the mountains are rooted to the earth.
I went down to the place where death’s gate would lock me in forever.
Yet You lifted me up from the pit.
Eternal One, You are my God!
7 Only as my life was fading way
did I remember the Eternal;
To Your sacred dwelling, Your holy temple,
my cries did rise to You.
8 Those who worship worthless idols
turn their backs on God and renounce their loyal love.
9 But I will sing to You and sacrifice to You
with a voice filled with thanksgiving;
Whatever I promised, I will certainly pay it
because deliverance is from the Eternal alone.
10 Then the Eternal One directed the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto the shore.
3 The word of the Eternal came to the prophet Jonah a second time.
Eternal One: 2 Get up, and go to that powerful and notorious city of Nineveh, and pass on to them the message I’m giving you.
3 Having learned his lesson, Jonah yielded to the Eternal’s command and headed on the road to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was an important city, so large that it took three days to travel throughout it. 4 Jonah had barely begun to walk the first day’s journey into the city when he stopped.
Jonah (shouting out to the people of Nineveh): After 40 days, Nineveh will be annihilated.
5 With that announcement, the people of Nineveh started to trust in Jonah’s God! Every person—whether young or old, rich or poor, male or female—fasted and wore a sack as a sign of remorse for his past wickedness. 6 The people of Nineveh told each other about this, until the news made it all the way to the king of Nineveh, who ruled the entire Assyrian Empire. The king changed from his royal robes to sackcloth, and instead of sitting up high on his throne, he sat down low in the dust. 7 He sent an official message to his subjects.
King’s Message: By order of the king of Nineveh and his nobles, “No human being, animal, cattle, or flock may taste anything. None of them may go out to eat or drink any water. 8 Instead let both humans and animals cover themselves with sacks. Let all who belong to this empire call to God sincerely and turn from their wicked ways and violent acts. 9 Perhaps Jonah’s God will show mercy and relent from His judgment. Perhaps out of compassion He will not unleash His fierce anger against us, and we may be spared.”
10 God saw all they did and how they turned from their evil ways. So He relented and decided not to unleash the disasters He said He would through His servant Jonah.
4 The mercy God extended toward Nineveh upset Jonah terribly. The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. 2 So he prayed to the Eternal.
Jonah has time to think of how greatly the Assyrians are oppressing Israel, and he can’t reconcile their deliverance.
Jonah: Eternal One, isn’t this what I said would happen when I was still in my own country? This is exactly the reason I ran away to Tarshish in the first place. I know how You are! I know that You are not like other gods, that You are full of grace and compassion, that it takes a lot to make You angry, and that Your loyal love is so great that You are always ready to relent from inflicting misery. 3 Eternal One, since You didn’t kill them, please take my life away from me. For my death now is so much better than my life tomorrow.
Eternal One: 4 Jonah, do you have any good reason to be angry?
5 Jonah headed east out of the city instead of west toward his home to look for a place high above the city to sit down. He found a suitable spot and built a shelter from the hot sun. He sat there waiting to see what might happen to the city. 6 Then the Eternal God chose a gourd plant to grow up and to shade Jonah from the discomfort of the intense heat. The large, thick leaves of this vine made Jonah very, very happy. 7 But at dawn the next day, God chose a worm to chew through the gourd’s vine; that night, it shriveled. 8 Then when the sun rose, God chose a scorching east wind to blow. As the sun beat down from a cloudless sky on Jonah’s head, he became faint. Again, he asked to die.
Jonah: My death now is so much better than my life tomorrow.
Eternal One: 9 Do you have any good reason to be angry about this gourd’s vine?
Jonah: Yes, I do. I’m angry enough to die.
Eternal One: 10 Jonah, don’t you understand? You care about this gourd’s vine, and yet you didn’t do anything to make it grow; you didn’t plant it, water it, or protect it. It appeared one night then died another. 11 Should I not have pity on that great city of Nineveh where there are more than 120,000 people who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.