He instructed them to say: “I, Jacob, your obedient servant, report to my master Esau that I have been staying with Laban and that I have delayed my return until now.
“Now the people of Ammon, Moab, and Edom have attacked us. When our ancestors came out of Egypt, you did not allow them to enter those lands, so our ancestors went around them and did not destroy them.
Meanwhile, all the Israelites who were in Moab, Ammon, Edom, and other countries, heard that the king of Babylonia had allowed some Israelites to stay on in Judah and that he had made Gedaliah their governor.
This is the prophecy of Obadiah—what the Sovereign Lord said about the nation of Edom. The Lord has sent his messenger to the nations, and we have heard his message: “Get ready! Let us go to war against Edom!”
Your pride has deceived you. Your capital is a fortress of solid rock; your home is high in the mountains, and so you say to yourself, ‘Who can ever pull me down?’
The Lord had done the same thing for the Edomites, the descendants of Esau, who live in the hill country of Edom. He destroyed the Horites, so that the Edomites took over their land and settled there, where they still live.
He told me to give you the following instructions: ‘You are about to go through the hill country of Edom, the territory of your distant relatives, the descendants of Esau. They will be afraid of you,
but you must not start a war with them, because I am not going to give you so much as a square foot of their land. I have given Edom to Esau's descendants.
and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I gave Esau the hill country of Edom as his possession, but your ancestor Jacob and his children went down to Egypt.
After Saul became king of Israel, he fought all his enemies everywhere: the people of Moab, of Ammon, and of Edom, the kings of Zobah, and the Philistines. Wherever he fought he was victorious.
