Joel

Old Testament · 4 chapters · 73 verses.

Chapter 1

1:1The word of the LORD that came to Joel son of Pethuel:
1:2Hear this, you elders, and give ear, all you inhabitants of the land. Has such a thing happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers?
1:3Tell it to your children, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.
1:4What the cutting locust left, the locust has eaten; what the locust left, the young locust has eaten; and what the young locust left, the devouring locust has eaten.
1:5Awake, you drunkards, and weep; and wail, all you who drink wine, because the new wine has been cut off from your mouth.
1:6For a nation has come up against My land, mighty and without number. Its teeth are lion’s teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness.
1:7It has made My vine a desolation and splintered My fig tree. It has stripped it utterly bare and cast it down; its branches are white.
1:8Lament like a virgin clothed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth.
1:9The grain offering and drink offering are cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests, servants of the LORD, mourn.
1:10The field is devastated; the ground mourns. The grain is devastated, the new wine has dried up, and the oil languishes.
1:11Be ashamed, you farmers; wail, you vinedressers, for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished.
1:12The vine has withered, and the fig tree languishes; the pomegranate, palm, and apple tree—all the trees of the field—have withered. For joy has withered away from mankind.
1:13Clothe yourselves in sackcloth and lament, you priests; wail, you servants of the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, servants of my God; for the grain offering and drink offering are withheld from the house of your God.
1:14Consecrate a fast; proclaim a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the LORD your God,
1:15and cry to the LORD, “Alas for the day! For the Day of the LORD is near, and as destruction from the Almighty it comes.
1:16Is not food cut off before our eyes, and joy and rejoicing from the house of our God?
1:17The seeds have shriveled beneath the clods; storehouses are desolate, granaries are broken down, because the grain has withered.
1:18How the livestock groan! The herds of cattle wander bewildered because there is no pasture for them; even the flocks of sheep suffer.
1:19To You, O LORD, I call, for fire has consumed the pastures of the wilderness, and a flame has set all the trees of the field on fire.
1:20Even the animals of the field long for You, for the streams of water have dried up, and fire has consumed the pastures of the wilderness.”

Chapter 2

2:1Blow a horn in Zion, and sound an alarm on My holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the Day of the LORD is coming; surely it is near—
2:2a day of darkness and thick darkness, a day of cloud and dense gloom. Like dawn spread over the mountains comes a people numerous and mighty; none has been like it from days of old, nor will there ever be again, through the years of generation after generation.
2:3Before it fire consumes, and behind it a flame burns. The land before it is like the Garden of Eden, and behind it a desolate wilderness; indeed, nothing escapes it.
2:4Its appearance is like the appearance of horses, and like horsemen they run.
2:5Like the noise of chariots they leap upon the tops of the mountains, like the noise of a flame of fire devouring stubble, like a mighty people drawn up for battle.
2:6Before them peoples are in anguish; all faces grow pale.
2:7They run like mighty men; like men of war they climb a wall. Each goes in his own way, and they do not turn aside from their paths.
2:8None jostles his brother; each marches in his own path. They plunge through the weapons and do not break rank.
2:9They rush through the city; they run upon the wall. They climb into the houses; they enter through the windows like a thief.
2:10Before them the earth trembles and the heavens shake. The sun and moon grow dark, and the stars withdraw their brightness.
2:11The LORD gives forth His voice before His army, for His camp is very great; the one who carries out His word is mighty. For great is the Day of the LORD, and very awesome; who can endure it?
2:12“Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with lamentation.”
2:13Tear your heart, and not your garments; and return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abundant in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.
2:14Who knows? He may turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind Him—a grain offering and drink offering for the LORD your God.
2:15Blow a horn in Zion; consecrate a fast; proclaim a solemn assembly.
2:16Gather the people; consecrate the assembly. Assemble the elders; gather the children and those nursing at the breasts. Let the bridegroom go out from his inner chamber, and the bride from her chamber.
2:17Let the priests, servants of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar; and let them say, “Have pity, O LORD, on Your people, and do not give Your inheritance to reproach, that nations should rule over them. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”
2:18Then the LORD was zealous for His land and had pity on His people.
2:19And the LORD answered and said to His people, “Behold, I am sending you the grain, the new wine, and the oil, and you will be satisfied with them; and I will no longer make you a reproach among the nations.
2:20I will put the northern one far from you and drive him into a dry and desolate land, with his face toward the Eastern Sea and his rear toward the Western Sea. His stench will rise, and his foul smell will come up, because he has done great things.”
2:21Do not fear, O land. Be glad and rejoice, for the LORD has done great things.
2:22Do not fear, O animals of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness have sprouted; the tree has borne its fruit, and the fig tree and vine have yielded their strength.
2:23And you, sons of Zion, be glad and rejoice in the LORD your God; for He has given you the Teacher for righteousness, and He causes the rain to come down for you—the early rain and the spring rain, as at the beginning.
2:24The threshing floors will be full of grain, and the presses will overflow with new wine and oil.
2:25“And I will repay you for the years that the locust has eaten—the young locust, the devouring locust, and the cutting locust—My great army that I sent against you.
2:26You will eat your fill and be satisfied, and praise the Name of the LORD your God, who has dealt wondrously with you; and My people will never again be put to shame.
2:27And you will know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the LORD your God, and there is no other; and My people will never again be put to shame.

Chapter 3

3:1And it will come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh; your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions.
3:2Even upon the male servants and female servants, in those days I will pour out My Spirit.
3:3And I will give wonders in the heavens and on the earth: blood, fire, and columns of smoke.
3:4The sun will be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Day of the LORD, the great and awesome day.
3:5And it will come to pass that everyone who calls on the Name of the LORD will be delivered; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be escape, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors whom the LORD calls.”

Chapter 4

4:1“For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem,
4:2I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; and I will enter into judgment with them there concerning My people and My inheritance, Israel, whom they scattered among the nations; and they divided My land.
4:3They cast lots for My people; they gave a young man for a prostitute and sold a young woman for wine, that they might drink.
4:4And what are you to Me, O Tyre and Sidon, and all the regions of Philistia? Are you repaying Me? If you are repaying Me, swiftly and quickly I will return your repayment upon your head.
4:5For you took My silver and My gold, and brought My good and precious treasures into your temples.
4:6And you sold the sons of Judah and the sons of Jerusalem to the Greeks, to remove them far from their border.
4:7Behold, I am stirring them up from the place to which you sold them, and I will return your repayment upon your head.
4:8I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the sons of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans, to a nation far away; for the LORD has spoken.”
4:9Proclaim this among the nations: Consecrate a war; stir up the mighty men. Let all the men of war draw near and come up.
4:10Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, “I am mighty.”
4:11Hurry and come, all you surrounding nations, and gather yourselves together. Bring down Your mighty ones there, O LORD.
4:12“Let the nations rouse themselves and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; for there I will 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 great is their wickedness.”
4:14Multitudes, multitudes are in the Valley of Decision, for the Day of the LORD is near in the Valley of Decision.
4:15The sun and moon grow dark, and the stars withdraw their brightness.
4:16The LORD roars from Zion and gives forth His voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shake. But the LORD is a refuge for His people and a stronghold for the sons of Israel.
4:17“And you will know that I am the LORD your God, dwelling in Zion, My holy mountain. Jerusalem will be holy, and foreigners will not pass through her again.
4:18And it will come to pass in that day that the mountains will drip with new wine, the hills will flow with milk, and all the streams of Judah will flow with water; and a spring will go forth from the house of the LORD and water the Valley of Shittim.
4:19Egypt will become a desolation, and Edom a desolate wilderness, because of violence against the sons of Judah, whose innocent blood they shed in their land.
4:20But Judah will be inhabited forever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation.
4:21I will avenge their blood, which I had not avenged; and the LORD dwells in Zion.”