Chapter 35

Word came to me from the Lord:

Son of man, turn thy regard towards the hill-country of Seir, and prophesy its doom.

This be thy message from the Lord God: Have at thee, Seir! My hand is raised to smite thee; desert thou shalt be and desolate;

when I have pulled down thy cities and left thee in ruins, thou shalt know my power at last.

Relentless foe, didst thou not cut off Israel’s retreat in its most need, when doom closed round it?

As I am a living God, the Lord says, to bloodshed I doom thee, bloodshed shall hunt thee down, the very bloodshed that liked thee so little.

Desolate and desert mount Seir shall be, none come and go there,

every crest of it piled high with the slain. Slain they shall fall, thy warriors, by hill-slope and valley and ravine,

till thou art left solitary for all time, thy cities uninhabited; so thou shalt witness my power.

Two nations and two countries (thy boast was), and both are mine;2 to me is left the enjoyment of them! forgetting that I, the Lord, dwell there.

As I am a living God, the Lord says, the rankling grudge that embittered thee thou shalt feel to thy cost; by the doom I execute upon thee, Israel shall learn to know me better;

and thou too shalt learn that I, the Lord, was listening, when thy arrogance claimed its deserted hill-country for thy prey.

I was listening to all those defiant blasphemies of thine,

and now, says the Lord God, let all the world rejoice as it will, thou shalt lie desolate.

Ruined utterly they shall be, mount Seir and all Edom, that triumphed in the ruin of Israel; the Lord’s power shall be made known at last.