THE BOOK OF JOEL
1 The word of the Lord which came to Joel the son of Pethuel.
Lament over the Ruin of the City
2 Hear these words, you elders, and hear, you that inhabit the land.
Have such things happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers?
3 Tell your children concerning them, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.
4 What the caterpillar has left, the locust has eaten, and what the
locust has left, the palmerworm has eaten, and what the palmerworm has
left, the cankerworm has eaten.
5 Awake, you drunkards, from your wine, and weep: mourn, all you that
drink wine to drunkenness: for joy and gladness are removed from your
mouth.
6 For a strong and innumerable nation has come up against My land,
their teeth are like lion’s teeth, and their back teeth as those
of a lion’s whelp.
7 He has ruined My vine, and utterly broken My fig trees: he has
utterly searched My vine, and cast it down; he has peeled its branches.
8 Lament to Me more than a virgin clothed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth.
9 The grain offering and drink offering are removed from the house of
the Lord: mourn, you priests that serve at the altar of the Lord.
10 For the plains languish: let the land mourn, for the grain
languishes; the wine is dried up, the oil becomes scarce; 11 the
farmers are consumed: mourn your property on account of the wheat and
barley; for the harvest has perished from off the field.
12 The vine is dried up, and the fig trees have become few; the
pomegranate, and palm tree, and apple, and all the trees of the field
have dried up: for the sons of men have abolished joy.”
A Call to Repentance and Prayer
13 Gird yourselves with sackcloth, and lament, you priests: mourn, you
that serve at the altar: go in, sleep in sackcloth, you that minister
to God: for the grain offering and drink offering are withheld from the
house of your God.
14 Sanctify a fast, proclaim a solemn service, gather the elders and
all the inhabitants of the land into the house of your God, and cry
earnestly to the Lord,
15 Alas, Alas, Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is near, and it will come as trouble upon trouble.
16 Your food has been destroyed before your eyes, joy and gladness from out of the house of your God.
17 The heifers have started at their mangers, the treasures are
abolished, the wine presses are broken down; for the grain is withered.
18 What shall we store up for ourselves? The herds of cattle have
mourned, because they had no pasture; and the flocks of sheep have been
utterly destroyed.
19 To You, O Lord, will I cry; for fire has devoured the fair places of
the wilderness, and a flame has burnt up all the trees of the field.
20 And the cattle of the field have looked up to You; for the fountains
of waters have been dried up, and fire has devoured the fair places of
the
wilderness.
JOEL CHAPTER 2
The Day of the Lord
1 Sound the trumpet in Zion, make a proclamation in My holy mountain,
and let all the inhabitants of the land be confounded; for the day of
the Lord is near;
2 for a day of darkness and gloominess is near, a day of cloud and
mist; a numerous and strong people shall be spread upon the mountains
as the morning; there has not been one like it from the beginning, and
after it there shall not be again, even to the years of many
generations.
3 Before them is a consuming fire, and behind them is a flame kindled;
the land before them is as a paradise of delight, and behind them a
desolate plain, and none of them shall escape.
4 Their appearance is as the appearance of horses, and as horsemen, so shall they pursue.
5 As the sound of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap,
and as the sound of a flame of fire devouring stubble, and as a
numerous and strong people setting themselves in array for battle.
6 Before them shall the people be crushed; every face shall be as the blackness of a caldron.
7 As warriors shall they run, and as men of war shall they mount on the
walls; and each shall move in his right path, and they shall not turn
aside from their tracks;
8 and not one shall stand aloof from his brother: they shall go on
weighed down with their arms, and they fall upon their weapons, yet
shall they in no way be destroyed.
9 They shall seize upon the city, and run upon the walls, and go up
upon the houses, and enter in through the windows as thieves.
10 Before them the earth shall be confounded, and the sky shall be
shaken: the sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall
withdraw their light.
11 And the Lord shall utter His voice before His army, for His camp is
very great; for the execution of His words is mighty; for the day of
the Lord is great, very glorious, and who shall be able to resist it?
12 “Now therefore,” says the Lord your God, “turn to
Me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with
lamentation.”
13 And rend your hearts, and not your garments, and turn to the Lord
your God: for He is merciful and compassionate, long suffering, and
plenteous in mercy, and relenting of evil.
14 Who knows if He will return and relent, and leave a blessing behind
Him, even a grain offering and a drink offering to the Lord your God?
15 Sound the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, proclaim a solemn service.
16 Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders,
gather the infants at the breast; let the bridegroom go forth out of
his chamber, and the bride out of her closet.
17 Between the porch and the altar let the priests that minister to the
Lord weep, and say, “Spare Your people, O Lord, and do not give
Your heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them, lest
they should say among the heathen, ‘Where is their
God?’”
God’s Response and Promise
18 But the Lord was jealous of His land, and spared His people.
19 And the Lord answered and said to His people, “Behold, I will
send you grain, and wine, and oil, and you shall be satisfied with
them: and I will no longer make you a reproach among the Gentiles.
20 And I will chase away from you the northern adversary, and will
drive him away into a dry land, and I will sink his face in the former
sea, and his back parts in the latter sea, and his stench shall come
up, and his foul odor will rise, because he has worked great
things.”
21 Be of good courage, O land; rejoice and be glad, for the Lord has done great things.
22 Be of good courage, you beasts of the plain, for the plains of
the wilderness have budded, for the trees have borne their fruit, the
fig tree and the vine have yielded their strength.
23 Rejoice then and be glad, you children of Zion, in the Lord your
God; for He has given you food fully, and He will rain on you the early
and the latter rain, as before.
24 And the floors shall be filled with wheat, and the presses shall overflow with wine and oil.
25 “And I will recompense you for the years which the locust, and
the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, and the cankerworm have eaten,
even My great army, which I sent against you.
26 And you shall eat abundantly, and be satisfied, and shall praise the
name of the Lord your God for the things which He has wrought
wonderfully with you, and My people shall not be put to shame.
27 And you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am
the Lord your God, and that there is none else beside Me; and My people
shall no more be ashamed forever.
God’s Spirit Poured Out
28 “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My
Spirit on all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see
visions.
29 And on My servants and on My maidservants in those days will I pour out My Spirit.
30 And I will show wonders in heaven, and upon the earth, blood, and fire, and vapors of smoke.
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
32 And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of
the Lord shall be saved: for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall the
saved one be as the Lord has said, and they that have glad tidings
preached to them, whom the Lord has
called.
JOEL CHAPTER 3
1 “For behold, in those days and at that time, when I shall have turned the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem,
2 I will also gather all the Gentiles, and bring them down to the
valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for My people and
My heritage Israel, who have been dispersed among the Gentiles; and
these Gentiles have divided My land,
3 and cast lots over My people, and have given their boys to harlots, and sold their girls for wine, and have drunk.
4 “And what have you to do with Me, O Tyre, and Sidon, and all
Galilee of the Gentiles? Do you render Me a recompense? Or do you bear
malice against Me? Quickly and speedily will I return your recompense
on your own heads;
5 because you have taken My silver and My gold, and you have brought My choice ornaments into your temples;
6 and you have sold the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem
to the children of the Greeks, that you might expel them from their
coasts.
7 Therefore, behold, I will raise them up out of the place where you
have sold them, and I will return your recompense on your own heads.
8 And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hands of the
children of Judah, and they shall sell them into captivity to a distant
nation; for the Lord has spoken it.”
Judgment in the Valley of Jehoshaphat
9 Proclaim these things among the Gentiles; declare war, arouse the warriors, draw near and go up, all you men of war.
10 Beat your plowshares into swords, and your sickles into spears: let the weak say, ‘I am strong.’
11 Gather yourselves together, and go in, all you nations round about,
and gather yourselves there; let the timid become a warrior.
12 Let them be aroused, let all the nations go up to the valley of
Jehoshaphat, for there will I sit to judge all the Gentiles round
about.
13 Bring forth the sickles, for the vintage is come: go in, tread the
grapes, for the press is full: cause the vats to overflow; for their
wickedness is multiplied.
14 Noises have resounded in the valley of judgment, for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of judgment.
15 The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their light.
16 And the Lord shall cry out of Zion, and shall utter His voice from
Jerusalem; and the heaven and the earth shall be shaken, but the Lord
shall spare His people, and shall strengthen the children of Israel.
17 And you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who dwells in Zion
My holy mountain: and Jerusalem shall be holy, and strangers shall not
pass through her anymore.
The Glorious Future of Judah
18 And it shall come to pass in that day that the mountains shall drop
sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the fountains
of Judah shall flow with water, and a fountain shall go forth of the
house of the Lord, and water the Valley of Flags.
19 Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom shall be a desolate plain,
because of the wrongs of the children of Judah, because they have shed
righteous blood in their land.
20 But Judea shall be inhabited forever, and Jerusalem to all generations.
21 And I will make inquisition for their blood, and will by no means
leave it unavenged: and the Lord shall dwell in
Zion.