Joel 2:18-27

The Voice

¹⁸But wait—the Eternal One has become possessive of His land;
He will restore us in compassion, His people!
¹⁹In response to our prayers, the Eternal will answer:

Eternal One: Listen! I am sending you a great harvest of grain, wine, and oil.
You will be completely satisfied and no longer
Will I make you a people held in contempt by the nations.

²⁰    I will remove My armies who attack from the north far from your borders,
        driving them into a parched and lonely desert.
    Then I will separate them: the front line to the Dead Sea,
        the rear guard into the Mediterranean Sea
        with the vile stench of their rotting corpses rising up.

Surely the Eternal One has done great things!

²¹Do not fear, O land. You have been revived.
    Celebrate and rejoice, for the Eternal One has done great things!
²²Do not fear, you wild beasts: You will eat again,
    for the desert pastures are green again!
And so will we: the trees bear their fruit;
    the fig trees and the vines produce their bounty once again.

²³People of Zion, shout with joy
    and happiness in the Eternal, your God;
The drought is over; He has sent the early autumn rain as a sign of His faithfulness.
    He has poured down heavy rain, autumn and spring, as before.
²⁴The threshing floors will be covered in grain;
    the vats will spill over with new wine and fresh oil.

²⁵Eternal One: I will compensate you for the years
        that the locusts have eaten—the swarming locusts,
    The creeping locusts, the stripping locusts, and the cutting locusts—^[a]
        My great army that I unleashed against you.

²⁶    In that day, you will eat plenty of food and always have enough,
        so you will praise My name,
    The Eternal One, your God who is merciful to you.
        Never again will My people be shamed among the nations.
²⁷    Return to Me and you will know that I live among My people Israel
        and that I, the Eternal One, am your God and there is no other.
    Never again will My people be shamed among the nations.