From the Kitchen Table: Paul's Letters

Written out of a failed attempt to explain this passage to a child.

Another way to read it

The first time I read this passage I understood nothing at all. I carried that incomprehension around for years, and then one afternoon it turned slightly, the way a key turns, and something opened. What follows is an attempt to describe the turn.（ヤコブの手紙 4:7）

16繰り返して言うが、だれも、わたしを愚か者と思わないでほしい。もしそう思うなら、愚か者あつかいにされてもよいから、わたしにも、少し誇らせてほしい。
コリント人への第二の手紙 11:16（口語訳（日本語））

Now set it back into its own century. What was the community that first heard this actually worried about? Simply imagining that changes the temperature of every line.

17しかしシオンの山には、のがれる者がいて、聖なる所となる。またヤコブの家はその領地を獲る。
18ヤコブの家は火となり、ヨセフの家は炎となり、エサウの家はわらとなる。彼らはその中に燃えて、これを焼く。エサウの家には残る者がないようになると主は言われた。
19ネゲブの人々はエサウの山を獲、セフェラの人々はペリシテびとを獲る。また彼らはエフライムの地、およびサマリヤの地を獲、ベニヤミンはギレアデを獲る。
20ハラにいるイスラエルの人々の捕われ人は、フェニキヤをザレパテまで取り、セパラデにいるエルサレムの捕われ人は、ネゲブの町々を獲る。
21こうして救う者はシオンの山に上って、エサウの山を治める。そして王国は主のものとなる。
オバデヤ書 1:17-21（口語訳（日本語））

Before we start

Here is the conclusion, which is not an answer. I have decided to read this as a promise rather than a command, for the plain reason that I can live inside the first reading and not the second. Whether that is a legitimate reason I genuinely do not know.

Notes from reading a canonical and a non-canonical text next to each other.
What came into view when I set three translations side by side.
What came into view when I set three translations side by side.

Closing

Put the translations side by side and the same verse arrives differently each time. One is soft, another is severe, and the original is a third thing that is neither. That difference is itself a way in.