Joel 3 / 3
- 1
(The Lord Judges the Nations)
"For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem,
- 2
I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. And I will enter into judgment with them there, on behalf of my people and my heritage Israel, because they have scattered them among the nations and have divided up my land,
- 3
and have cast lots for my people, and have traded a boy for a prostitute, and have sold a girl for wine and have drunk it.
- 4
"What are you to me, O Tyre and Sidon, and all the regions of Philistia? Are you paying me back for something? If you are paying me back, I will return your payment on your own head swiftly and speedily.
- 5
For you have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried my rich treasures into your temples.
- 6
You have sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks in order to remove them far from their own border.
- 7
Behold, I will stir them up from the place to which you have sold them, and I will return your payment on your own head.
- 8
I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans, to a nation far away, for the Lord has spoken."
- 9
Proclaim this among the nations:
Consecrate for war;
stir up the mighty men.
Let all the men of war draw near;
let them come up.
- 10
Beat your plowshares into swords,
and your pruning hooks into spears;
let the weak say, "I am a warrior."
- 11
Hasten and come,
all you surrounding nations,
and gather yourselves there.
Bring down your warriors, O Lord.
- 12
Let the nations stir themselves up
and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat;
for there I will sit to judge
all the surrounding nations.
- 13
Put in the sickle,
for the harvest is ripe.
Go in, tread,
for the winepress is full.
The vats overflow,
for their evil is great.
- 14
Multitudes, multitudes,
in the valley of decision!
For the day of the Lord is near
in the valley of decision.
- 15
The sun and the moon are darkened,
and the stars withdraw their shining.
- 16
The Lord roars from Zion,
and utters his voice from Jerusalem,
and the heavens and the earth quake.
But the Lord is a refuge to his people,
a stronghold to the people of Israel.
- 17(The Glorious Future of Judah)
"So 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 never again pass through it.
- 18
"And in that day
the mountains shall drip sweet wine,
and the hills shall flow with milk,
and all the streambeds of Judah
shall flow with water;
and a fountain shall come forth from the house of the Lord
and water the Valley of Shittim.
- 19
"Egypt shall become a desolation
and Edom a desolate wilderness,
for the violence done to the people of Judah,
because they have shed innocent blood in their land.
- 20
But Judah shall be inhabited forever,
and Jerusalem to all generations.
- 21
I will avenge their blood,
blood I have not avenged,
for the Lord dwells in Zion."