Day 264 of 364

¹The vision of Obadiah. This is what the Lord GOD says about Edom. We have heard news from the LORD, and an ambassador is sent among the nations, saying, “Arise, and let’s rise up against her in battle. ²Behold, I have made you small among the nations. You are greatly despised. ³The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who dwell in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high, who says in his heart, ‘Who will bring me down to the ground?’ ⁴Though you mount on high as the eagle, and though your nest is set among the stars, I will bring you down from there,” says the LORD. ⁵“If thieves came to you, if robbers by night—oh, what disaster awaits you—wouldn’t they only steal until they had enough? If grape pickers came to you, wouldn’t they leave some gleaning grapes? ⁶How Esau will be ransacked! How his hidden treasures are sought out! ⁷All the men of your alliance have brought you on your way, even to the border. The men who were at peace with you have deceived you, and prevailed against you. Friends who eat your bread lay a snare under you. There is no understanding in him.” ⁸“Won’t I in that day”, says the LORD, “destroy the wise men out of Edom, and understanding out of the mountain of Esau? ⁹Your mighty men, Teman, will be dismayed, to the end that everyone may be cut off from the mountain of Esau by slaughter. ¹⁰For the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame will cover you, and you will be cut off forever. ¹¹In the day that you stood on the other side, in the day that strangers carried away his substance and foreigners entered into his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem, even you were like one of them. ¹²But don’t look down on your brother in the day of his disaster, and don’t rejoice over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction. Don’t speak proudly in the day of distress. ¹³Don’t enter into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity. Don’t look down on their affliction in the day of their calamity, neither seize their wealth on the day of their calamity. ¹⁴Don’t stand in the crossroads to cut off those of his who escape. Don’t deliver up those of his who remain in the day of distress. ¹⁵For the day of the LORD is near all the nations! As you have done, it will be done to you. Your deeds will return upon your own head. ¹⁶For as you have drunk on my holy mountain, so all the nations will drink continually. Yes, they will drink, swallow down, and will be as though they had not been. ¹⁷But in Mount Zion, there will be those who escape, and it will be holy. The house of Jacob will possess their possessions. ¹⁸The house of Jacob will be a fire, the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble. They will burn among them and devour them. There will not be any remaining to the house of Esau.” Indeed, the LORD has spoken. ¹⁹Those of the South will possess the mountain of Esau, and those of the lowland, the Philistines. They will possess the field of Ephraim, and the field of Samaria. Benjamin will possess Gilead. ²⁰The captives of this army of the children of Israel, who are among the Canaanites, will possess even to Zarephath; and the captives of Jerusalem, who are in Sepharad, will possess the cities of the Negev. ²¹Saviors will go up on Mount Zion to judge the mountains of Esau, and the kingdom will be the LORD’s.

^1:1Now the LORD’s word came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, ^1:2“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach against it, for their wickedness has come up before me.” ^1:3But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid its fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. ^1:4But the LORD sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty storm on the sea, so that the ship was likely to break up. ^1:5Then the mariners were afraid, and every man cried to his god. They threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone down into the innermost parts of the ship and he was laying down, and was fast asleep. ^1:6So the ship master came to him, and said to him, “What do you mean, sleeper? Arise, call on your God! Maybe your God will notice us, so that we won’t perish.” ^1:7They all said to each other, “Come! Let’s cast lots, that we may know who is responsible for this evil that is on us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. ^1:8Then they asked him, “Tell us, please, for whose cause this evil is on us. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? Of what people are you?” ^1:9He said to them, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, who has made the sea and the dry land.” ^1:10Then the men were exceedingly afraid, and said to him, “What have you done?” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them. ^1:11Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may be calm to us?” For the sea grew more and more stormy. ^1:12He said to them, “Take me up, and throw me into the sea. Then the sea will be calm for you; for I know that because of me this great storm is on you.” ^1:13Nevertheless the men rowed hard to get them back to the land; but they could not, for the sea grew more and more stormy against them. ^1:14Therefore they cried to the LORD, and said, “We beg you, LORD, we beg you, don’t let us die for this man’s life, and don’t lay on us innocent blood; for you, LORD, have done as it pleased you.” ^1:15So they took up Jonah and threw him into the sea; and the sea ceased its raging. ^1:16Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly; and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows. ^1:17The LORD prepared a huge fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. ^2:1Then Jonah prayed to the LORD, his God, out of the fish’s belly. ^2:2He said, “I called because of my affliction to the LORD. He answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried. You heard my voice. ^2:3For you threw me into the depths, in the heart of the seas. The flood was all around me. All your waves and your billows passed over me. ^2:4I said, ‘I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.’ ^2:5The waters surrounded me, even to the soul. The deep was around me. The weeds were wrapped around my head. ^2:6I went down to the bottoms of the mountains. The earth barred me in forever; yet you have brought my life up from the pit, LORD my God. ^2:7“When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the LORD. My prayer came in to you, into your holy temple. ^2:8Those who regard vain idols forsake their own mercy. ^2:9But I will sacrifice to you with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that which I have vowed. Salvation belongs to the LORD.” ^2:10Then the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited out Jonah on the dry land. ^3:1The LORD’s word came to Jonah the second time, saying, ^3:2“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I give you.” ^3:3So Jonah arose, and went to Nineveh, according to the LORD’s word. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey across. ^3:4Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried out, and said, “In forty days, Nineveh will be overthrown!” ^3:5The people of Nineveh believed God; and they proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, from their greatest even to their least. ^3:6The news reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, took off his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. ^3:7He made a proclamation and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, “Let neither man nor animal, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, nor drink water; ^3:8but let them be covered with sackcloth, both man and animal, and let them cry mightily to God. Yes, let them turn everyone from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. ^3:9Who knows whether God will not turn and relent, and turn away from his fierce anger, so that we might not perish?” ^3:10God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way. God relented of the disaster which he said he would do to them, and he didn’t do it. ^4:1But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. ^4:2He prayed to the LORD, and said, “Please, LORD, wasn’t this what I said when I was still in my own country? Therefore I hurried to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and you relent of doing harm. ^4:3Therefore now, LORD, take, I beg you, my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” ^4:4The LORD said, “Is it right for you to be angry?” ^4:5Then Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city, and there made himself a booth and sat under it in the shade, until he might see what would become of the city. ^4:6The LORD God prepared a vine and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head to deliver him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the vine. ^4:7But God prepared a worm at dawn the next day, and it chewed on the vine so that it withered. ^4:8When the sun arose, God prepared a sultry east wind; and the sun beat on Jonah’s head, so that he was faint and requested for himself that he might die. He said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” ^4:9God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the vine?” He said, “I am right to be angry, even to death.” ^4:10The LORD said, “You have been concerned for the vine, for which you have not labored, neither made it grow; which came up in a night and perished in a night. ^4:11Shouldn’t I be concerned for Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred twenty thousand persons who can’t discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also many animals?”

¹The LORD’s word that came to Micah of Morasheth in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. ²Hear, you peoples, all of you! Listen, O earth, and all that is therein. Let the Lord GOD be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. ³For behold, the LORD comes out of his place, and will come down and tread on the high places of the earth. ⁴The mountains melt under him, and the valleys split apart like wax before the fire, like waters that are poured down a steep place. ⁵“All this is for the disobedience of Jacob, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the disobedience of Jacob? Isn’t it Samaria? And what are the high places of Judah? Aren’t they Jerusalem? ⁶Therefore I will make Samaria like a rubble heap of the field, like places for planting vineyards; and I will pour down its stones into the valley, and I will uncover its foundations. ⁷All her idols will be beaten to pieces, all her temple gifts will be burned with fire, and I will destroy all her images; for of the hire of a prostitute has she gathered them, and to the hire of a prostitute shall they return.” ⁸For this I will lament and wail. I will go stripped and naked. I will howl like the jackals and mourn like the ostriches. ⁹For her wounds are incurable; for it has come even to Judah. It reaches to the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem. ¹⁰Don’t tell it in Gath. Don’t weep at all. At Beth Ophrah I have rolled myself in the dust. ¹¹Pass on, inhabitant of Shaphir, in nakedness and shame. The inhabitant of Zaanan won’t come out. The wailing of Beth Ezel will take from you his protection. ¹²For the inhabitant of Maroth waits anxiously for good, because evil has come down from the LORD to the gate of Jerusalem. ¹³Harness the chariot to the swift steed, inhabitant of Lachish. She was the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion; for the transgressions of Israel were found in you. ¹⁴Therefore you will give a parting gift to Moresheth Gath. The houses of Achzib will be a deceitful thing to the kings of Israel. ¹⁵I will yet bring a conqueror to you, inhabitants of Mareshah. The glory of Israel will come to Adullam. ¹⁶Shave your heads, and cut off your hair for the children of your delight. Enlarge your baldness like the vulture, for they have gone into captivity from you!