Add parallel Print Page Options

Cry Out to the Lord

13 [a]Gird yourselves and lament, you priests!
    wail, ministers of the altar!
Come, spend the night in sackcloth,
    ministers of my God!
For the grain offering and the libation
    are withheld from the house of your God.(A)
14 Proclaim a holy fast!
    Call an assembly!
Gather the elders,
    all who dwell in the land,
To the house of the Lord, your God,
    and cry out to the Lord!(B)
15 O! The day![b]
    For near is the day of the Lord,
    like destruction from the Almighty it is coming!(C)

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 1:13 Judah’s situation is so grave and the day of the Lord so imminent that priests must lament day and night if they hope to reverse the divine punishment.
  2. 1:15 As in Am 5:18–20, the day of the Lord in Joel’s first speech brings punishment, not victory, for Judah. In his second speech, this event means victory for those faithful to the Lord and death for the nations who are the Lord’s enemies. Almighty: Hebrew shaddai. There is wordplay between shod (“destruction”) and shaddai.