Joel
1,1The Word of God that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel.
1,2Hear this, you elders,
And listen, all you inhabitants of the land.
Has this ever happened in your days,
or in the days of your fathers?
1,3Tell your children
about it,
and have your children tell their children,
and their children, another generation.
1,4What the swarming
locust has left, the great locust has eaten.
What the great locust has left, the grasshopper has eaten.
What the grasshopper has left, the caterpillar has eaten.
1,5Wake up, you
drunkards, and weep!
Wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine;
for it is cut off from your mouth.
1,6For a nation has come
up onMy land, strong, and without number.
His teeth are the teeth of a lion,
and he has the fangs of a lioness.
1,7He has laid My vine
waste,
and stripped My fig tree.
He has stripped its bark, and thrown it away.
Its branches are made white.
1,8Mourn like a virgin
dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth.
1,9The meal offering and the drink
offering are cut off from God's house.
The priests, God's ministers, mourn.
1,10The field is laid
waste.
The land mourns, for the grain is destroyed,
The new wine has dried up,
and the oil languishes.
1,11Be confounded, you
farmers!
Wail, you vineyard keepers;
for the wheat and for the barley;
for the harvest of the field has perished.
1,12The vine has dried
up, and the fig tree withered;
the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree,
even all of the trees of the field are withered;
for joy has withered away from the sons of men.
1,13Put on sackcloth and
mourn, you priests!
Wail, you ministers of the altar.
Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God,
for the meal offering and the drink offering are withheld from your
God's house.
1,14Sanctify a fast.
Call a solemn assembly.
Gather the elders,
and all the inhabitants of the land, to the house of God, your Lord,
and cry to God.
1,15Alas for the day!
For the day of God is at hand,
and it will come as destruction from the Almighty.
1,16Isn't the food cut
off before our eyes;
joy and gladness from the house of our God?
1,17The seeds rot under
their clods.
The granaries are laid desolate.
The barns are broken down, for the grain has withered.
1,18How the animals groan!
The herds of livestock are perplexed, because they have no pasture.
Yes, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.
1,19God, I cry to you,
For the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness,
and the flame has burned all the trees of the field.
1,20The animals of
the field pant to you,
for the water brooks have dried up,
And the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.
2,1Blow the trumpet in
Zion,
and sound an alarm in My holy mountain!
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,
for the day of God comes,
for it is close at hand:
2,2A day of darkness and
gloominess,
a day of clouds and thick darkness.
As the dawn spreading on the mountains,
a great and strong people;
there has never been the like,
neither will there be any more after them,
even to the years of many generations.
2,3A fire devours before
them,
and behind them, a flame burns.
The land is as the garden of Eden before them,
and behind them, a desolate wilderness.
and no one has escaped them.
2,4Their appearance is as
the appearance of horses,
and as horsemen, so do they run.
2,5Like the noise of
chariots on the tops of the mountains do they leap,
like the noise of a flame of fire that devours the stubble,
as a strong people set in battle array.
2,6At their presence the
peoples are in anguish.
All faces have grown pale.
2,7They run like mighty
men.
They climb the wall like warriors.
They each march in his line, and they don't swerve off course.
2,8Neither does one
jostle another;
they march everyone in his path,
and they burst through the defenses,
and don't break ranks.
2,9They rush on the city.
They run on the wall.
They climb up into the houses.
They enter in at the windows like thieves.
2,10The earth quakes
before them.
The heavens tremble.
The sun and the moon are darkened,
and the stars withdraw their shining.
2,11God thunders His
voice before His army;
for His forces are very great;
for he is strong who obeys His command;
for the day of God is great and very awesome,
and who can endure it?
2,12Yet even now,
says God, turn to me with all your heart,
and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning.
2,13Tear your heart, and
not your garments,
and turn to God, your Lord;
for He is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness,
and relents from sending calamity.
2,14Who knows? He may
turn and relent,
and leave a blessing behind him,
even a meal offering and a drink offering to God, your Lord.
2,15Blow the trumpet in
Zion!
Sanctify a fast.
Call a solemn assembly.
2,16Gather the people.
Sanctify the assembly.
Assemble the elders.
Gather the children, and those who nurse from breasts.
Let the bridegroom go forth from his room,
and the bride out of her room.
2,17Let the priests, the
ministers of God, weep between the porch and the altar,
and let them say, "Spare Your people, God,
and don't give Your heritage to reproach,
that the nations should rule over them.
Why should they say among the peoples,
'Where is their God?'"
2,18Then God was
jealous for His land,
And had pity on His people.
2,19God answered His
people,
Behold, I will send you grain, new wine, and oil,
and you will be satisfied with them;
and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations.
2,20But I will remove the
northern army far away from you,
and will drive it into a barren and desolate land,
its front into the eastern sea,
and its back into the western sea;
and its stench will come up,
and its bad smell will rise.
Surely He has done great things.
2,21Land, don't be
afraid.
Be glad and rejoice, for God has done great things.
2,22Don't be afraid,
you animals of the field;
for the pastures of the wilderness spring up,
for the tree bears its fruit.
The fig tree and the vine yield their strength.
2,23Be glad then, you
children of Zion,
and rejoice in God, your Lord;
for He gives you the former rain in just measure,
and He causes the rain to come down for you,
the former rain and the latter rain as before.
2,24The threshing floors
will be full of wheat, and the vats will overflow with new wine and oil.
2,25I will restore to you
the years that the swarming locust has eaten,
the great locust, the grasshopper, and the caterpillar,
My great army, which I sent among you.
2,26You will have plenty
to eat, and be satisfied,
and will praise the name of God, your Lord,
who has dealt wondrously with you.
My people will never again be disappointed.
2,27You will know that I
am in the midst of Israel,
and that I am God, your Lord, and there is no one else;
and My people will never again be disappointed.
3,1It will happen
afterward, that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh;
and your sons and your daughters will prophesy.
Your old men will dream dreams.
Your young men will see visions.
3,2And also on the
servants and on the handmaids in those days,
I will pour out My Spirit.
3,3I will show wonders
in the heavens and in the earth;
blood, fire, and pillars of smoke.
3,4The sun will be
turned into darkness,
and the moon into blood,
3,5It will happen that
whoever will call on the name of God shall be saved;
for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be those who escape,
and a remnant, those whom God calls.
4,1For, behold, in
those days,
and in that time,
when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem,
4,2I will gather all
nations,
and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat;
and I will execute judgment on them there for My people,
and for My heritage, Israel, whom they have scattered among the
nations.
They have divided My land,
4,3and have cast lots for
My people,
and have given a boy for a prostitute,
and sold a girl for wine, that they may drink.
4,4What are
you to Me, Tyre, and Sidon,
and all the regions of Philistia?
Will you repay Me?
And if you repay Me,
I will swiftly and speedily return your repayment on your own head.
4,5Because you have taken
My silver and gold,
and have carried My finest treasures into your temples,
4,6and have sold the
children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem to the sons of the Greeks,
that you may remove them far from their border.
4,7Behold, I will stir
them up out of the place where you have sold them,
and will return your repayment on your own head;
4,8and I will sell your
sons and your daughters into the hands of the children of Judah,
and they will sell them to the men of Sheba,
to a faraway nation,
for God has spoken it."
4,9Proclaim this among
the nations:
Prepare for war!
Stir up the mighty men.
Let all the warriors draw near.
Let them come up.
4,10Beat your plowshares into swords,
and your pruning hooks into spears.
Let the weak say, 'I am strong.'
4,11Hurry and come, all
you surrounding nations,
and gather yourselves together.
Cause your mighty ones to come down there, God.
4,12"Let the nations
arouse themselves,
and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat;
for there will I sit to judge all the surrounding nations.
4,13Put in the sickle;
for the harvest is ripe.
Come, tread, for the winepress is full,
the vats overflow, for their wickedness is great."
4,14Multitudes,
multitudes in the valley of decision!
For the day of God is near, in the valley of decision.
4,15The sun and the moon
are darkened,
and the stars withdraw their shining.
4,16God will roar from
Zion,
and thunder from Jerusalem;
and the heavens and the earth will shake;
but God will be a refuge to His people,
and a stronghold to the children of Israel.
4,17So you will know
that I am God, your Lord,
dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain.
Then Jerusalem will be holy,
and no strangers will pass through her any more.
4,18It will happen in
that day,
that the mountains will drop down sweet wine,
the hills will flow with milk,
all the brooks of Judah will flow with waters,
and a fountain will come forth from the house of God,
and will water the valley of Shittim.
4,19Egypt will be a
desolation,
and Edom will be a desolate wilderness,
for the violence done to the children of Judah,
because they have shed innocent blood in their land.
4,20But Judah will be
inhabited forever,
and Jerusalem from generation to generation.
4,21I will cleanse their
blood,
that I have not cleansed,
for God dwells in Zion."
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