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  Joel

1 The word of Jehovah that came to Joel the son of Pethuel. ²Hear this, you old men, and give ear, all you inhabitants of the land. has this been in your days, or in the days of your fathers? ³Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. ⁴That which the palmer-worm has left has the locust eaten; and that which the locust has left has the canker-worm eaten; and that which the canker-worm has left has the caterpillar eaten. ⁵Awake, you drunkards, and weep; and wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine; for it is cut off from your mouth. ⁶For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number; his teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the jaw-teeth of a lioness. ⁷He has laid my vine waste, and barked my fig-tree: he has made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white.

⁸Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. ⁹The meal-offering and the drink-offering are cut off from the house of Jehovah; the priests, Jehovah’s ministers, mourn. ¹⁰The field is laid waste, the land mourns; for the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, the oil languishes. ¹¹Be confounded, O you husbandmen, wail, O you vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field is perished. ¹²The vine is withered, and the fig-tree languishes; the pomegranate-tree, the palm-tree also, and the apple-tree, even all the trees of the field are withered: for joy is withered away from the sons of men. ¹³Gird yourselves with sackcloth, and lament, 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 the house of your God.

¹⁴Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the old men and all the inhabitants of the land unto the house of Jehovah your God, and cry unto Jehovah. ¹⁵Alas for the day! for the day of Jehovah is at hand, and as destruction from the Almighty shall it come. ¹⁶Is not the food cut off before our eyes, yes, joy and gladness from the house of our God? ¹⁷The seeds rot under their clods; the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the grain is withered. ¹⁸How do the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yes, the flocks of sheep are made desolate. ¹⁹O Jehovah, to you do I cry; for the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame has burned all the trees of the field. ²⁰Yes, the beasts of the field pant unto you; for the water brooks are dried up, and the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

2 Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain; let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of Jehovah comes, for it is near at hand; ²a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, as the dawn spread upon the mountains; a great people and a strong; there has not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after them, even to the years of many generations. 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; yes, and none has escaped them. ⁴The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so do they run. 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. ⁶At their presence the peoples are in anguish; all faces are become pale. ⁷They run like mighty men; they climb the wall like men of war; and they march every one on his ways, and they break not their ranks. ⁸Neither does one thrust another; they march every one in his path; and they burst through the weapons, and break not off their course. ⁹They leap upon the city; they run upon the wall; they climb up into the houses; they enter in at the windows like a thief. ¹⁰The earth quakes before them; the heavens tremble; the sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. ¹¹And Jehovah utters his voice before his army; for his camp is very great; for he is strong that executes his word; for the day of Jehovah is great and very terrible; and who can abide it?

¹²Yet even now, says Jehovah, turn unto me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: ¹³and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto Jehovah your God; for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness, and he repents of the evil. ¹⁴Who knows whether he will not turn and repent, and leave a blessing behind him, even a meal-offering and a drink-offering unto Jehovah your God? ¹⁵Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly; ¹⁶gather the people, sanctify the assembly, assemble the old men, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts; let the bridegroom go forth from his chamber, and the bride out of her closet. ¹⁷Let the priests, the ministers of Jehovah, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare your people, O Jehovah, and give not your heritage to reproach, that the nations should rule over them: why should they say among the peoples, Where is their God?

¹⁸Then was Jehovah jealous for his land, and had pity on his people. ¹⁹And Jehovah answered and said unto his people, Behold, I will send you grain, and new wine, and oil, and you shall be satisfied therewith; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations; ²⁰but I will remove far off from you the northern army, and will drive it into a land barren and desolate, its forepart into the eastern sea, and its hinder part into the western sea; and its stench shall come up, and its ill savor shall come up, because it has done great things. ²¹Fear not, O land, be glad and rejoice; for Jehovah has done great things. ²²Be not afraid, you beasts of the field; for the pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the tree bears its fruit, the fig-tree and the vine do yield their strength. ²³Be glad then, you children of Zion, and rejoice in Jehovah your God; for he gives you the former rain in just measure, and he causes to come down for you the rain, the former rain and the latter rain, in the first month. ²⁴And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the vats shall overflow with new wine and oil. ²⁵And I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten, the canker-worm, and the caterpillar, and the palmer-worm, my great army which I sent among you. ²⁶And you shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and shall praise the name of Jehovah your God, that has dealt wondrously with you; and my people shall never be put to shame. ²⁷And you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am Jehovah your God, and there is none else; and my people shall never be put to shame.

²⁸And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: ²⁹and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my Spirit. ³⁰And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. ³¹The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of Jehovah comes. ³²And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of Jehovah shall be delivered; for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those that escape, as Jehovah has said, and among the remnant those whom Jehovah does call.

3 For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring back the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, ²I will gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat; and I will execute judgment upon them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations: and they have parted my land, ³and have cast lots for my people, and have given a boy for a harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they may drink. ⁴Yes, and what are you to me, O Tyre, and Sidon, and all the regions of Philistia? will you render me a recompense? and if you recompense me, swiftly and speedily will I return your recompense upon your own head. ⁵Forasmuch as you have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my goodly precious things, ⁶and have sold the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem unto the sons of the Grecians, that you may remove them far from their border; ⁷behold, I will stir them up out of the place where you have sold them, and will return your recompense upon your own head; ⁸and I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the men of She-ba, to a nation far off: for Jehovah has spoken it.

⁹Proclaim you this among the nations; prepare war; stir up the mighty men; let all the men of war draw near, let them come up. ¹⁰Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. ¹¹Hurry and come, all you nations round about, and gather yourselves together: there cause your mighty ones to come down, O Jehovah. ¹²Let the nations bestir themselves, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat; for there will I sit to judge all the nations round about. ¹³Put in the sickle; for the harvest is ripe: come and tread; for the winepress is full, the vats overflow; for their wickedness is great. ¹⁴Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! for the day of Jehovah is near in the valley of decision. ¹⁵The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. ¹⁶And Jehovah will roar from Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but Jehovah will be a refuge unto his people, and a stronghold to the children of Israel. ¹⁷So shall you know that I am Jehovah your God, dwelling in Zion my holy mountain: then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more.