Jeremiah 49:7-22

Holman Christian Standard Bible

Prophecies against Edom

⁷About Edom, this is what the Lord of Hosts says:

Is there no longer wisdom in Teman?^[a]
Has counsel perished from the prudent?
Has their wisdom rotted away?^(A)
⁸Run! Turn back! Lie low,
residents of Dedan,^(B)
for I will bring Esau’s calamity on him
at the time I punish him.^(C)
⁹If grape harvesters came to you,
wouldn’t they leave some gleanings?^(D)
Were thieves to come in the night,
they would destroy only what they wanted.^(E)
¹⁰But I will strip Esau bare;
I will uncover his secret places.^(F)
He will try to hide himself, but he will be unable.
His descendants will be destroyed
along with his relatives and neighbors.
He will exist no longer.
¹¹Abandon your fatherless; I will preserve them;
let your widows trust in Me.^(G)

¹²“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 remain unpunished, for you must drink it too. ¹³For by Myself I have sworn”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“Bozrah^[b] will become a desolation, a disgrace, a ruin, and a curse, and all her cities will become ruins forever.”^(H)

¹⁴I have heard a message from the Lord;
a messenger has been sent among the nations:
Assemble yourselves to come against her.
Rise up for war!

¹⁵Look, I will certainly make you insignificant among the nations,
despised among humanity.
¹⁶As to the terror you cause,^[c]
your presumptuous heart has deceived you.
You who live in the clefts of the rock,^[d]
you who occupy the mountain summit,
though you elevate your nest like the eagle,
even from there I will bring you down.
This is the Lord’s declaration.^(I)

¹⁷“Edom will become a desolation. Everyone who passes by her will be horrified and scoff because of all her wounds.^(J) ¹⁸As when Sodom and Gomorrah were overthrown along with their neighbors,”^(K) says the Lord, “no one will live there; no human being will even stay in it as a temporary resident.^(L)

¹⁹“Look, it will be like a lion coming from the thickets^[e] of the Jordan to the watered grazing land. Indeed, I will chase Edom away from her land in a flash. I will appoint whoever is chosen for her. For who is like Me? Who will summon Me?^(M) Who is the shepherd who can stand against Me?”

²⁰Therefore, hear the plans that the Lord has drawn up against Edom and the strategies He has devised against the people of Teman:^(N) The flock’s little lambs will certainly be dragged away,^(O) and their grazing land will be made desolate because of them. ²¹At the sound of their fall the earth will quake; the sound of her cry will be heard at the Red Sea.^(P) ²²Look! It will be like an eagle soaring upward, then swooping down and spreading its wings over Bozrah. In that day the hearts of Edom’s warriors will be like the heart of a woman with contractions.^(Q)