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Israel Preferred to Edom

(A)I love you, says the Lord;
    but you say, “How do you love us?”
[a](B)Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?—oracle of the Lord.
    I loved Jacob, but rejected Esau;
I made his mountains a waste,
    his heritage a desert for jackals.
(C)If Edom says, “We have been crushed,
    but we will rebuild the ruins,”
Thus says the Lord of hosts:
    They indeed may build, but I will tear down,
And they shall be called “territory of wickedness,”
    the people with whom the Lord is angry forever.

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Footnotes

  1. 1:3–5 The thought passes from the person Esau to his descendants, Edom, and from the person Jacob to his descendants, Israel; cf. Gn 25:21–23. In the New Testament, Paul uses this passage as an example of God’s freedom of choice in calling the Gentiles to faith (Rom 9:13).