Joel 1-4

Tree of Life Version

² Hear this, elders!
Give ear, all inhabitants of the land.
Has this ever happened in your days,
or even in the days of your fathers?
³ Tell your children about it—
your children to their children,
their children to another generation.
⁴ What the locust left,
    the swarming locust has eaten,
and what the swarming locust left,
    the canker-worm has eaten,
and what the canker-worm left,
    the caterpillar has eaten.
⁵ Awake, drunkards, and weep!
Wail, all you drinkers of wine—
on account of sweet wine,
for it is denied to your mouth!
⁶ For a nation has invaded my land.
Vast—yes, without number!
Its teeth are lion’s teeth,
    with jaw-teeth of a lioness.^[a]
7 He has turned my vine to waste
and my fig tree to splinters.
He has stripped off all the bark
    and flung it down—
its branches are left white.
⁸ Wail like a virgin dressed in sackcloth
for the husband of her youth!
⁹ Grain offering and drink offering
are cut off from the House of Adonai.
Kohanim—ministers of Adonai—mourn.
¹⁰ The field is ruined, the land grieves,
for the grain has been devastated,
new wine is dried up, oil languishes.
¹¹ Be ashamed, O ploughmen;
wail, O vinedressers,
    over wheat and over barley,
for the harvest of the field is lost.
¹² The vine withered, the fig tree wilted.
Pomegranate, palm and apple tree
—all trees of the field—are withered,
for joy has withered away
    from the children of men.
¹³ Gird yourselves and weep, kohanim!
Howl, ministers of the altar!
Come, lie in sackcloth all night,
        ministers of my God.
For grain and drink offering are withheld
    from the House of your God.

¹⁴ Consecrate a fast.
Proclaim a solemn assembly.
Gather elders and all living in the land
to the House of Adonai your God,
    and cry to Adonai.
¹⁵ Ah, the day!
The day of Adonai is near!
As havoc from Shaddai it will come.
¹⁶ Is food not cut off before our eyes—
joy and gladness from God’s House?
¹⁷ Seed has shriveled under the dirt clod.
Storehouses are desolate,
    granaries are torn down,
    for the grain has withered.
¹⁸ How the animals groan!
The herds of cattle are perplexed,
    because they have no pasture.
The flocks of sheep also suffer.
¹⁹ To You, Adonai, I cry!
For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness,
and flame has set ablaze all the trees of the field.
²⁰ Also beasts of the field pant toward You.
For the water of wadis are dried up,
and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.
2 Blow the shofar in Zion!
Sound an alarm on My holy mountain!
Let all living in the land tremble—
for the day of Adonai is coming—
surely it is near!^[b]
2 A day of darkness and gloominess,
a day of clouds and thick darkness,
as blackness spreads over the mountains.
A great and mighty people—
from antiquity there was never anything like it,
nor after it ever again from generation to generation.^[c]
3 A fire devours before them
and behind them flame blazes up.
Like the Garden of Eden is the land before them,
    and behind them a desolate wilderness.
Nothing at all ever escapes them.
⁴ Their appearance is like the appearance of horses—
they gallop like war horses.^[d]
5 Like the clatter of chariots,^[e]
they leap on the tops of mountains,
like crackling flame of fire devouring stubble,
like a mighty horde in battle array.
⁶ Before them peoples are in anguish.
All faces become ashen gray.
⁷ They run like mighty men.
They climb a wall like men of war.
They each march in line,
    never deviating from their ways.
⁸ One does not crowd another.
Each one marches on his own highway.
They plunge through the weapons,
    never breaking off.
⁹ They rush on the city,
they run on the wall,
they climb up into the houses,
    coming through the windows like a thief.
¹⁰ Before them land quakes,
heaven trembles,
sun and moon become dark,
stars withdraw their brightness.^[f]
11 Adonai utters His voice before His army.
For His camp is very vast—
    for mighty is it that carries out His word.
For great is the day of Adonai—^[g] very terrifying!
    Who can endure it?

¹² “Yet even now”
—it is a declaration of Adonai—
“turn to Me with all your heart,
with fasting, weeping and lamenting.”
¹³ Rend your heart, not your garments,
and turn to Adonai, your God.
For He is gracious and compassionate,
    slow to anger, abundant in mercy,
    and relenting about the calamity due.
¹⁴ Who knows? He may turn and relent,
and may leave a blessing behind Him
—so there may be a grain offering
and a drink offering for Adonai, your God.

¹⁵ Blow the shofar in Zion!
Sanctify a fast;
proclaim an assembly.
¹⁶ Gather the people;
sanctify the congregation;
assemble the elders;
gather the children,
    even those nursing at breasts.
Let the bridegroom come out from his bedroom
and the bride from her chamber.
¹⁷ Between the porch and the altar
let the kohanim, ministers of Adonai,
    weep, and let them say:
    “Have pity, Adonai, on Your people.
    Don’t make Your heritage a scorn,
        a byword among the nations.
Why should the peoples say,
    ‘Where is their God?’”^[h]
18 Adonai will be zealous for His land,
and have compassion on His people.
¹⁹ Adonai will answer and say to His people:
“Behold, I will send you the grain,
    the new wine, and the fresh oil,
    and you will be satisfied with it.
I will no longer make you a mockery among the nations.
²⁰ “But I will remove the northern invader far from you—
    yes, I will banish him to a dry and desolate land—
his vanguard into the Eastern Sea
and his rearguard into the Western Sea.
His odor will go up—
        Yes, his stench will rise.”
    For He^[i] has done great things!

²¹ Do not fear, O land. Be glad! Rejoice!
For Adonai has done great things.
²² Do not be afraid, beasts of the field,
for the desert pastures have sprouted,
for the tree bears its fruit.
Fig tree and vine yield their strength.
²³ So be glad, children of Zion,
and rejoice in Adonai, your God.
For He gives you the early rain^[j] for prosperity,
Yes, He will bring down rain for you,
    the early and latter rain as before.
²⁴ The threshing floors will be full of grain
and the vats will overflow with new wine and fresh oil.

3 “So it will be afterward,^[k]
I will pour out My Ruach on all flesh:^[l]
your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams,
your young men will see visions.
² “Also on the male and the female servants
will I pour out My spirit in those days.^[m]
3 I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth—
blood, fire and pillars of smoke.^[n]
4 The sun will be turned into darkness
and the moon into blood, before the great and awesome day of Adonai comes.
⁵ Then all who call on Adonai’s Name^[o] will escape,
for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem
there will be rescue, as Adonai has said,
    among the survivors whom Adonai is calling.”

4 “For behold, in those days and at that time,
    when I restore Judah and Jerusalem from exile,
² I will gather all nations
and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat.
I will plead^[p] with them there on behalf of My people,
    even My inheritance, Israel,
whom they scattered among the nations
    and they divided up My land.
³ They cast lots for My people,
traded a boy for a prostitute,
    and sold a girl for wine, which they drank.”

but Adonai will be a refuge for His people,
    and a safe place for the children of Israel.
¹⁷ So you will know that I am Adonai, your God,
dwelling in Zion, My holy mountain.
Then will Jerusalem be holy,
and foreigners will cross through her no more.
¹⁸ It will be in that day,
the mountains will drip sweet wine,
the hills will flow with milk,
and all the wadis of Judah will flow with water.^[t]
A spring will flow out from the House of Adonai
    and water the valley of Shittim.
¹⁹ Egypt will become a desolation
and Edom a desert wasteland,
because of the violence against the children of Judah,
because they shed innocent blood in their land.
²⁰ But Judah will be inhabited forever—
Jerusalem from generation to generation.
²¹ I will acquit their bloodguilt that I had not acquitted,^[u]
for Adonai dwells in Zion.