Joel 3

The Lord judges the nations

1. For behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall turn again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem,
2. I will also gather all the nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and I will enter into judgment with them there on account of my people and mine inheritance, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations: and they have parted my land;
3. and they have cast lots for my people, and have given a boy for a harlot, and sold a girl for wine, and have drunk [it] .
4. Yea also, what have ye to do with me, O Tyre and Zidon, and all the districts of Philistia? Will ye render me a recompence? But if ye recompense me, swiftly [and] speedily will I bring your recompence upon your own head;
5. because ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my beautiful pleasant things,
6. and the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the children of the Greeks, that ye might remove them far from their border.
7. Behold, I will raise them up out of the place whither ye have sold them, and will bring your recompence upon your own head.
8. And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a nation far off: for Jehovah hath spoken.
9. Proclaim this among the nations: prepare war, arouse the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near, let them come up.
10. Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your pruning-knives into spears; let the weak say, I am strong.
11. Haste ye and come, all ye nations round about, and gather yourselves together. Thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Jehovah.
12. Let the nations rouse themselves, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat; for there will I sit to judge all the nations round about.
13. Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down, for the press is full, the vats overflow; for their wickedness is great.
14. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of Jehovah is at hand in the valley of decision.
15. The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.

God will bless his people

16. And Jehovah will roar from Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: and Jehovah will be a shelter for his people, and the refuge of the children of Israel.
17. And ye shall know that I, Jehovah, [am] your God, dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain; and Jerusalem shall be holy, and no strangers shall pass through her any more.
18. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the water-courses of Judah shall flow with waters; and a fountain shall come forth from the house of Jehovah, and shall water the valley of Shittim.
19. Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness, for the violence against the children of Judah, in that they have shed innocent blood in their land.
20. But Judah shall abide for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation.
21. And I will purge them from the blood from which I had not purged them: for Jehovah dwelleth in Zion.

Chapters

123