Bible

Joel

¹This is the word of Yahweh that came to Joel son of Pethuel.

²Hear this, you elders,

and listen, all you inhabitants of the land.

Has anything like this happened in your days

or in the days of your ancestors?

³Tell your children about it,

and let your children tell their children,

and their children the next generation.

⁴What the swarming locust has left,

the great locust has eaten;

what the great locust has left,

the grasshopper has eaten;

and what the grasshopper has left,

the caterpillar has eaten.

⁵Wake up, you drunkards, and weep!

Wail, all you drinkers of wine,

because the sweet wine has been cut off from you.

⁶For a nation has come up upon my land,

mighty and without number.

His teeth are the teeth of a lion,

and he has the teeth of a lioness.

⁷He has made my vineyard into a desolate place

and has stripped my fig tree bare.

He has stripped its bark

and thrown it away;

the branches are bare white.

⁸Mourn like a virgin girded in sackcloth

for the death of her young bridegroom.

⁹The grain offering and the drink offering

have been cut off from the house of Yahweh.

The priests, Yahweh's servants, mourn.

¹⁰The fields are ruined;

the ground is mourning

because the grain has been destroyed.

The new wine has dried up;

the oil fails.

¹¹Be ashamed, you farmers,

and wail, you vine growers,

for the wheat and the barley.

For the harvest of the fields has perished.

¹²The vines have withered

and the fig trees have dried up;

the pomegranate trees, also the palm trees, and the apple trees—

all the trees of the field have withered.

For joy has withered away

from the descendants of mankind.

¹³Gird yourselves with sackcloth and mourn, you priests!

Wail, you servants of the altar.

Come, lie all night in sackcloth,

you servants of my God.

For the grain offering and the drink offering

have been withheld from the house of your God.

¹⁴Call for a holy fast,

and call a holy assembly.

Gather the elders

and all the inhabitants of the land

to the house of Yahweh your God,

and cry to Yahweh.

¹⁵Alas for the day!

For the day of Yahweh is almost here.

With it will come destruction from the Almighty.

¹⁶Has not food been cut off

from before our eyes,

and joy and gladness

from the house of our God?

¹⁷The seeds rot under their clods,

the storehouses are desolate,

and the barns have been torn down,

for the grain has withered.

¹⁸How the cattle groan!

Their herds are wandering in confusion

because they have no pasture.

Even the flocks of sheep are suffering.

¹⁹Yahweh, I cry to you.

For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness,

and flames have burned all the trees of the fields.

²⁰Even the animals of the fields pant for you,

for the water brooks have dried up,

and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

¹Blow the ram's horn in Zion,

and sound an alarm on my holy mountain!

Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble in fear,

for the day of Yahweh is coming;

indeed, it is near.

²It is a day of darkness and gloom,

a day of clouds and thick darkness.

Like the dawn that spreads on the mountains,

a large and mighty army is approaching.

There has never been an army like it,

and there never will be again,

even after many generations.

³A fire is consuming everything in front of it,

and behind it a flame is burning.

The land is like the garden of Eden in front of it,

but behind it there is a ruined wilderness.

Indeed, nothing will escape from it.

⁴The army's appearance is like horses,

and they run like horsemen.

⁵They jump with a noise like that of chariots

on the tops of the mountains,

like the sound of fiery flames that devour the stubble,

like a mighty army ready for battle.

⁶At their presence people are in anguish

and all their faces become pale.

⁷They run like mighty warriors;

they climb the walls like soldiers;

they march, every one in step,

and do not break their ranks.

⁸Neither does one thrust another aside;

they march, each in his path;

they break through the defenses

and do not fall out of line.

⁹They rush on the city,

they run on the wall,

they climb in the houses,

and they go through the windows like thieves.

¹⁰The earth shakes in front of them,

the heavens tremble,

the sun and the moon are darkened,

and the stars stop shining.

¹¹Yahweh raises his voice

in front of his army,

for his warriors are very numerous;

for they are strong,

those who carry out his commands.

For the day of Yahweh is great

and very terrible.

Who can endure it?

¹²"Yet even now"—this is Yahweh's declaration—

"Return to me with all your heart.

Fast, weep, and mourn."

¹³Tear your heart

and not only your garments,

and return to Yahweh your God.

For he is gracious and merciful,

slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love

and relenting from inflicting punishment.

¹⁴Who knows? Will he perhaps turn and relent,

and leave a blessing behind him,

a grain offering and a drink offering

for Yahweh your God?

¹⁵Blow the ram's horn in Zion,

call for a holy fast,

and call a holy assembly.

¹⁶Gather the people;

call for the holy assembly.

Assemble the elders;

gather the children

and the nursing infants.

Let the bridegrooms come out of their rooms,

and the brides out of their bridal chambers.

¹⁷Let the priests, the servants of Yahweh,

weep between the porch and the altar.

Let them say, "Spare your people, Yahweh,

and do not make your inheritance into an object of scorn,

that the nations mock them.

Why should they say among the nations,

'Where is their God?'"

¹⁸Then Yahweh was zealous for his land

and had pity on his people.

¹⁹Yahweh answered his people,

"Look, I will send you grain, new wine, and oil.

You will be satisfied with them,

and I will no longer make you

a disgrace among the nations.

²⁰I will remove the northern attackers far from you,

and will drive them into a dry and desolate land.

The front of their army will go into the eastern sea,

and the rear into the western sea.

Its stench will rise,

and its bad smell will rise."

Indeed, he has done great things.

²¹Do not fear, land; be glad and rejoice,

for Yahweh will do great things.

²²Do not fear, you wild animals!

For the pastures of the wilderness will sprout,

the trees will bear their fruit,

and the fig trees and the vines will yield their full harvest.

²³Be glad, people of Zion,

and rejoice in Yahweh your God.

For he will give you the autumn rain

as vindication

and bring down showers for you,

the autumn rain and the spring rain as before.

²⁴The threshing floors will be full of wheat,

and the vats will overflow with new wine and oil.

²⁵"I will restore to you the years of crops

that the swarming locust has eaten—

the great locust, the devouring locust, and the destroying locust—

my mighty army that I sent among you.

²⁶You will eat plentifully and be satisfied,

and praise the name of Yahweh your God,

who has done wonders among you,

and I will never again bring shame on my people.

²⁷You will know that I am among Israel,

and that I am Yahweh your God,

and there is none else,

and I will never bring shame on my people.

²⁸It will come about 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.

²⁹Also on servants and female servants,

in those days I will pour out my Spirit.

³⁰I will show wonders in the heavens

and on the earth,

blood, fire, and pillars of smoke.

³¹The sun will turn into darkness

and the moon into blood,

before the great and terrible day of Yahweh comes.

³²It will be that everyone who calls

on the name of Yahweh will be saved.

For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem

there will be an escaped remnant,

as Yahweh has said,

and among the survivors,

those whom Yahweh calls.

¹Behold, in those days and at that time,

when I reverse the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem,

²I will gather all the nations,

and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat.

I will judge them there,

because of my people and my inheritance Israel,

whom they scattered among the nations,

and because they divided up my land.

³They cast lots for my people,

traded a boy for a prostitute,

and sold a girl for wine so they could drink.

⁴Now, why are you angry at me,

Tyre, Sidon and all the regions of Philistia?

Will you repay me?

Even if you do repay me,

I will immediately return your repayment on your own head.

⁵For you took my silver and my gold,

and you brought my precious treasures into your temples.

⁶You sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks,

in order to send them far away from their territory.

⁷Look, I am about to stir them up,

out of the place where you sold them,

and will return payment on your own head.

⁸I will sell your sons and your daughters,

by the hand of the people of Judah.

They will sell them to the Sabeans,

to a nation far off,

for Yahweh has spoken."

⁹Proclaim this among the nations:

"Prepare yourselves for war;

rouse the mighty men;

let them come near;

let all the men of battle come up.

¹⁰Beat your plowshares into swords

and your pruning knives into spears.

Let the weak say,

'I am mighty.'

¹¹Hurry and come,

all you nearby nations;

gather yourselves together there.

Yahweh, bring down your mighty warriors.

¹²Let the nations wake themselves up

and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat.

For there will I sit to judge

all the surrounding nations.

¹³Put in the sickle,

for the harvest is ripe.

Come, crush the grapes,

for the winepress is full.

The vats overflow,

for their wickedness is great."

¹⁴There is a tumult, a tumult

in the Valley of Judgment.

For the day of Yahweh is near

in the Valley of Judgment.

¹⁵The sun and the moon become dark,

the stars keep back their brightness.

¹⁶Yahweh will roar from Zion,

and raise his voice from Jerusalem.

The heavens and earth will shake,

but Yahweh will be a shelter for his people,

and a fortress for the people of Israel.

¹⁷"So you will know that I am Yahweh your God

who lives in Zion, my holy mountain.

Then Jerusalem will be holy,

and foreigners will not pass through her again.

¹⁸It will come about on that day

that the mountains will drip with sweet wine,

the hills will flow with milk,

all the brooks of Judah will flow with water,

and a fountain will come from the house of Yahweh

and water the Valley of Shittim.

¹⁹Egypt will become an abandoned devastation,

and Edom will become an abandoned wilderness,

because of the violence done to the people of Judah,

because they shed innocent blood in their land.

²⁰But Judah will be inhabited forever,

and Jerusalem will be inhabited from generation to generation.

²¹I will avenge their blood that I have not yet avenged,

for Yahweh lives in Zion."

English: Unlocked Literal Bible for Joel

Formatted for Translators

Joel