The Living Bible (286 page)

Obadiah

In a vision the Lord God showed Obadiah the future of the land of Edom.
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“A report has come from the Lord,” he said, “that God has sent an ambassador to the nations with this message: ‘Attention! You are to send your armies against Edom and destroy her!’”

    
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 “I will cut you down to size among the nations, Edom, making you small and despised.

    
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 “You are proud because you live in those high, inaccessible cliffs. ‘Who can ever reach us way up here!’ you boast. Don’t fool yourselves!
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 Though you soar as high as eagles, and build your nest among the stars, I will bring you plummeting down,” says the Lord.

    
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 “Far better it would be for you if thieves had come at night to plunder you—for they would not take everything! Or if your vineyards were robbed of all their fruit—for at least the gleanings would be left!
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 Every nook and cranny will be searched and robbed, and every treasure found and taken.

    
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 “All your allies will turn against you and help to push you out of your land. They will promise peace while plotting your destruction. Your trusted friends will set traps for you, and all your counterstrategy will fail.
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 In that day not one wise man will be left in all of Edom!” says the Lord. “For I will fill the wise men of Edom with stupidity.
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 The mightiest soldiers of Teman will be confused, and helpless to prevent the slaughter.

    
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 “And why? Because of what you did to your brother Israel. Now your sins will be exposed for all to see; ashamed and defenseless, you will be cut off forever.
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 For you deserted Israel in his time of need. You stood aloof, refusing to lift a finger to help him when invaders carried off his wealth and divided Jerusalem among them by lot; you were as one of his enemies.

    
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 “You should not have done it. You should not have gloated when they took him far away to foreign lands; you should not have rejoiced in the day of his misfortune; you should not have mocked in his time of need.
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 You yourselves went into the land of Israel in the day of his calamity and looted him. You made yourselves rich at his expense.
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 You stood at the crossroads and killed those trying to escape; you captured the survivors and returned them to their enemies in that terrible time of his distress.

    
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 The Lord’s vengeance will soon fall upon all Gentile nations. As you have done to Israel, so will it be done to you. Your acts will boomerang upon your heads.
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 You drank my cup of punishment upon my holy mountain, and the nations round about will drink it too; yes, they will drink and stagger back and disappear from history, no longer nations anymore.

    
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 “But Jerusalem will become a refuge, a way of escape. Israel will reoccupy the land.
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 Israel will be a fire that sets the dry fields of Edom aflame. There will be no survivors,” for the Lord has spoken.

    
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 Then my people who live in the Negeb shall occupy the hill country of Edom; those living in Judean lowlands shall possess the Philistine plains and repossess the fields of Ephraim and Samaria. And the people of Benjamin shall possess Gilead.

    
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 The Israeli exiles shall return and occupy the Phoenician coastal strip as far north as Zarephath. Those exiled in Asia Minor shall return to their homeland and conquer the Negeb’s outlying villages.
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 For deliverers will come to Jerusalem and rule all Edom. And the Lord shall be King!

Jonah

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Jonah
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The Lord sent this message to Jonah, the son of Amittai:

    
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 “Go to the great city of Nineveh, and give them this announcement from the Lord: ‘I am going to destroy you, for your wickedness rises before me; it smells to highest heaven.’”

    
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 But Jonah was afraid to go and ran away from the Lord. He went down to the seacoast, to the port of Joppa, where he found a ship leaving for Tarshish. He bought a ticket, went on board, and climbed down into the dark hold of the ship to hide there from the Lord.

    
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 But as the ship was sailing along, suddenly the Lord flung a terrific wind over the sea, causing a great storm that threatened to send them to the bottom.
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 Fearing for their lives, the desperate sailors shouted to their gods for help and threw the cargo overboard to lighten the ship. And all this time Jonah was sound asleep down in the hold.

    
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 So the captain went down after him. “What do you mean,” he roared, “sleeping at a time like this? Get up and cry to your god, and see if he will have mercy on us and save us!”

    
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 Then the crew decided to draw straws to see which of them had offended the gods and caused this terrible storm; and Jonah drew the short one.

    
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 “What have you done,” they asked, “to bring this awful storm upon us? Who are you? What is your work? What country are you from? What is your nationality?”

    
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 And he said, “I am a Jew;
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I worship Jehovah, the God of heaven, who made the earth and sea.” Then he told them he was running away from the Lord.

    
The men were terribly frightened when they heard this. “Oh, why did you do it?” they shouted.
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 “What should we do to you to stop the storm?” For it was getting worse and worse.

    
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 “Throw me out into the sea,” he said, “and it will become calm again. For I know this terrible storm has come because of me.”

    
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 They tried harder to row the boat ashore, but couldn’t make it. The storm was too fierce to fight against.
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 Then they shouted out a prayer to Jehovah, Jonah’s God. “O Jehovah,” they pleaded, “don’t make us die for this man’s sin, and don’t hold us responsible for his death, for it is not our fault—you have sent this storm upon him for your own good reasons.”

    
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 Then they picked up Jonah and threw him overboard into the raging sea—and the storm stopped!

    
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 The men stood there in awe before Jehovah, and they sacrificed to him and vowed to serve him.

    
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 Now the Lord had arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.

Jonah
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Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from inside the fish:

    
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 “In my great trouble I cried to the Lord and he answered me; from the depths of death I called, and Lord, you heard me!
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 You threw me into the ocean depths; I sank down into the floods of waters and was covered by your wild and stormy waves.
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 Then I said, ‘O Lord, you have rejected me and cast me away. How shall I ever again see your holy Temple?’

    
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 “I sank beneath the waves, and death was very near. The waters closed above me; the seaweed wrapped itself around my head.
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 I went down to the bottoms of the mountains that rise from the ocean floor. I was locked out of life and imprisoned in the land of death. But, O Lord my God, you have snatched me from the yawning jaws of death!

    
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 “When I had lost all hope, I turned my thoughts once more to the Lord. And my earnest prayer went to you in your holy Temple.
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 (Those who worship false gods have turned their backs on all the mercies waiting for them from the Lord!)

    
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 “I will never worship anyone but you! For how can I thank you enough for all you have done? I will surely fulfill my promises. For my deliverance comes from the Lord alone.”

    
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 And the Lord ordered the fish to spit up Jonah on the beach, and it did.

Jonah
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Then the Lord spoke to Jonah again: “Go to that great city, Nineveh,” he said, “and warn them of their doom, as I told you to before!”

    
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 So Jonah obeyed and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city with many villages around it—so large that it would take three days to walk through it.
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 But the very first day when Jonah entered the city and began to preach, the people repented. Jonah shouted to the crowds that gathered around him, “Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed!” And they believed him and declared a fast; from the king on down, everyone put on sackcloth—the rough, coarse garments worn at times of mourning.
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 For when the king of Nineveh heard what Jonah was saying, he stepped down from his throne, laid aside his royal robes, put on sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
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 And the king and his nobles sent this message throughout the city: “Let no one, not even the animals, eat anything at all, nor even drink any water.
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 Everyone must wear sackcloth and cry mightily to God, and let everyone turn from his evil ways, from his violence and robbing.
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 Who can tell? Perhaps even yet God will decide to let us live and will hold back his fierce anger from destroying us.”

    
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 And when God saw that they had put a stop to their evil ways, he abandoned his plan to destroy them and didn’t carry it through.