Joel 3:9-21

Common English Bible

⁹ Announce this among the nations:
    Prepare a holy war,
        wake up the warriors;
    let all the soldiers draw near,
        let them come up!
¹⁰ Beat the iron tips of your plows into swords
            and your pruning tools into spears;
        let the weakling say, “I am mighty.”
¹¹ Come quickly,
        all you surrounding nations;
    gather yourselves there;
        bring your mighty ones, Lord.
¹² Let the nations prepare themselves,
        and come up to the Jehoshaphat Valley;
            for there I will sit to judge
                all the surrounding nations.
¹³ Cut with the sickle,
        for the harvest is ripe.
    Go and crush grapes,
        for the winepress is full.
    The jars overflow with wine,
        for their wickedness is great.
¹⁴ Crowd after crowd fills the valley of judgment,
    for the day of the Lord is near
        in the valley of judgment.
¹⁵ The sun and the moon are darkened;
    the stars have ceased shining.

¹⁶ The Lord roars from Zion,
        and utters his voice from Jerusalem;
        the heavens and the earth quake.
    But the Lord is a refuge for his people,
        a shelter for the people of Israel.
¹⁷ So you will know that I am the Lord your God,
        settle down in Zion, my holy mountain.
    Jerusalem will be holy,
        and never again will strangers pass through it.
¹⁸ In that day
        the mountains will drip sweet wine,
        the hills will flow with milk,
        and all the streambeds of Judah
            will flow with water;
        a spring will come forth from the Lord’s house
            and water the Shittim Valley.
¹⁹ Egypt will become desolate
        and Edom a desolate wilderness.
    This is because of the violence done to the people of Judah,
        in whose land they have shed innocent blood.
²⁰ But Judah will be inhabited forever,
        and Jerusalem for all generations.
²¹ I will forgive their bloodguilt,
        which I had not forgiven.
I will act on their account;
        I will not pardon the guilty.