Joel 3

¹⁹Behold, at that time, I will deal with all who afflict you. I will save the lame and gather the scattered; and I will appoint praise and fame for the disgraced throughout the earth.

²⁰At that time I will bring you in; yes, at that time I will gather you. For I will give you fame and praise among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your captives before your very eyes,” says the Lord.

³For behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will restore from captivity My people Israel and Judah, declares the Lord. I will restore them to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they will possess it.’”

²⁵Therefore this is what the Lord God says: Now I will restore Jacob from captivity and will have compassion on the whole house of Israel, and I will be jealous for My holy name.

¹⁴I will restore My people Israel from captivity; they will rebuild and inhabit the ruined cities. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit.

¹⁴I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore you from captivity and gather you from all the nations and places to which I have banished you, declares the Lord. I will restore you to the place from which I sent you into exile.”

¹For the choirmaster. A Psalm of the sons of Korah. You showed favor to Your land, O Lord; You restored Jacob from captivity.

²For I will gather all the nations for battle against Jerusalem, and the city will be captured, the houses looted, and the women ravished. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be removed from the city.

³Then the Lord will go out to fight against those nations, as He fights in the day of battle.

¹⁶For by fire and by His sword, the Lord will execute judgment on all flesh, and many will be slain by the Lord.

⁸Therefore wait for Me,” declares the Lord, “until the day I rise to testify. For My decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out upon them My indignation—all My burning anger. For all the earth will be consumed by the fire of My jealousy.

²²I will execute judgment upon him with plague and bloodshed. I will pour out torrents of rain, hailstones, fire, and sulfur on him and on his troops and on the many nations with him.

¹²Let the nations be roused and advance to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, for there I will sit down to judge all the nations on every side.

¹¹And on that day I will give Gog a burial place in Israel, the Valley of the Travelers, east of the Sea. It will block those who travel through, because Gog and all his hordes will be buried there. So it will be called the Valley of Hamon-gog.

¹⁰Yet she became an exile; she went into captivity. Her infants were dashed to pieces at the head of every street. They cast lots for her dignitaries, and all her nobles were bound in chains.

⁶This is what the Lord says: “For three transgressions of Israel, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because they sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals.

¹¹On the day you stood aloof while strangers carried off his wealth and foreigners entered his gate and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were just like one of them.

¹³of cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, and frankincense; of wine, olive oil, fine flour, and wheat; of cattle, sheep, horses, and carriages; of bodies and souls of slaves.

⁸Then the Israelites took 200,000 captives from their kinsmen—women, sons, and daughters. They also carried off a great deal of plunder and brought it to Samaria.

⁹But a prophet of the Lord named Oded was there, and he went out to meet the army that returned to Samaria. “Look,” he said to them, “because of His wrath against Judah, the Lord, the God of your fathers, has delivered them into your hand. But you have slaughtered them in a rage that reaches up to heaven.

⁶This is what the Lord says: “For three transgressions of Gaza, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because they exiled a whole population, delivering them up to Edom.

⁷So I will send fire upon the walls of Gaza, to consume its citadels.

⁴For the day has come to destroy all the Philistines, to cut off from Tyre and Sidon every remaining ally. Indeed, the Lord is about to destroy the Philistines, the remnant from the coasts of Caphtor.

⁸For the Lord has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.

¹⁸So He will repay according to their deeds: fury to His enemies, retribution to His foes, and recompense to the islands.

¹²This is what the Lord God says: ‘Because Edom acted vengefully against the house of Judah, and in so doing incurred grievous guilt,

¹³therefore this is what the Lord God says: I will stretch out My hand against Edom and cut off from it both man and beast. I will make it a wasteland, and from Teman to Dedan they will fall by the sword.

¹This is the burden against Tyre: Wail, O ships of Tarshish, for Tyre is laid waste, without house or harbor. Word has reached them from the land of Cyprus.

²Be silent, O dwellers of the coastland, you merchants of Sidon, whose traders have crossed the sea.

¹⁶Then the Lord stirred against Jehoram the spirit of the Philistines and Arabs who lived near the Cushites.

¹⁷So they went to war against Judah, invaded it, and carried off all the possessions found in the king’s palace, along with his sons and wives; not a son was left to him except Jehoahaz, his youngest.

¹³As the Lord had declared, Nebuchadnezzar also carried off all the treasures from the house of the Lord and the royal palace, and he cut into pieces all the gold articles that Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the Lord.

⁸Ahaz also took the silver and gold found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king’s palace, and he sent it as a gift to the king of Assyria.

¹⁸So King Joash of Judah took all the sacred objects dedicated by his fathers—Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, the kings of Judah—along with his own consecrated items and all the gold found in the treasuries of the house of the Lord and the royal palace, and he sent them to Hazael king of Aram. So Hazael withdrew from Jerusalem.

¹⁵Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the royal palace.

¹⁶At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold with which he had plated the doors and doorposts of the temple of the Lord, and he gave it to the king of Assyria.

²⁸Listen to the fugitives and refugees from the land of Babylon, declaring in Zion the vengeance of the Lord our God, the vengeance for His temple.

¹³Javan, Tubal, and Meshech were your merchants. They exchanged slaves and bronze utensils for your merchandise.

³They cast lots for My people; they bartered a boy for a prostitute and sold a girl for wine to drink.

⁸I will sell your sons and daughters into the hands of the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans—to a distant nation.” Indeed, the Lord has spoken.

⁶⁸The Lord will return you to Egypt in ships by a route that I said you should never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

³²Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, while your eyes grow weary looking for them day after day, with no power in your hand.

⁵Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east and gather you from the west.

⁶I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back!’ Bring My sons from afar, and My daughters from the ends of the earth—

⁸Instead they will say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought and led the descendants of the house of Israel up out of the land of the north and all the other lands to which He had banished them.’ Then they will dwell once more in their own land.”

⁶After all, it is only right for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you,

¹⁶Nevertheless, all who devour you will be devoured, and all your adversaries—every one of them—will go off into exile. Those who plundered you will be plundered, and all who raided you will be raided.

¹⁰As for you, O Jacob My servant, do not be afraid, declares the Lord, and do not be dismayed, O Israel. For I will surely save you out of a distant place, your descendants from the land of their captivity! Jacob will return to quiet and ease, with no one to make him afraid.

⁶I will strengthen the house of Judah and save the house of Joseph. I will restore them because I have compassion on them, and they will be as though I had not rejected them. For I am the Lord their God, and I will answer them.

⁷Ephraim will be like a mighty man, and their hearts will be glad as with wine. Their children will see it and be joyful; their hearts will rejoice in the Lord.

¹⁴The sons of your oppressors will come and bow down to you; all who reviled you will fall facedown at your feet and call you the City of the Lord, Zion of the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁵the Sabeans swooped down and took them away. They put the servants to the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you!”

¹⁴Then the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He delivered them into the hands of those who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist.

¹For the Lord will have compassion on Jacob; once again He will choose Israel and settle them in their own land. The foreigner will join them and unite with the house of Jacob.

²The nations will escort Israel and bring it to its homeland. Then the house of Israel will possess the nations as menservants and maidservants in the Lord’s land. They will make captives of their captors and rule over their oppressors.

²So the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his forces was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-hagoyim.

⁴²accompanied by the sound of a carefree crowd. Drunkards were brought in from the desert along with men from the rabble, who put bracelets on your wrists and beautiful crowns on your head.

³“Deploy your shields, small and large; advance for battle!

⁴Harness the horses; mount the steeds; take your positions with helmets on! Polish your spears; put on armor!

⁷Get ready; prepare yourself, you and all your company gathered around you; you will be their guard.

⁹Huddle together, O peoples, and be shattered; pay attention, all you distant lands; prepare for battle, and be shattered; prepare for battle, and be shattered!

¹⁰Devise a plan, but it will be thwarted; state a proposal, but it will not happen. For God is with us.”

¹⁰Hear, O nations, the word of the Lord, and proclaim it in distant coastlands: “The One who scattered Israel will gather them and keep them as a shepherd keeps his flock.

²“Announce and declare to the nations; lift up a banner and proclaim it; hold nothing back when you say, ‘Babylon is captured; Bel is put to shame; Marduk is shattered, her images are disgraced, her idols are broken in pieces.’

¹⁰Declare among the nations: “The Lord reigns!” The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved; He will judge the peoples with equity.

⁸On that day the Lord will defend the people of Jerusalem, so that the weakest among them will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the angel of the Lord going before them.

³Then He will judge between many peoples and arbitrate for strong nations far and wide. Then they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer take up the sword against nation, nor will they train anymore for war.

⁴Then He will judge between the nations and arbitrate for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer take up the sword against nation, nor train anymore for war.

⁸Even if you go and fight bravely in battle, God will overthrow you before the enemy, for God has power to help and power to overthrow.”

³⁶“Now, however,” He told them, “the one with a purse should take it, and likewise a bag; and the one without a sword should sell his cloak and buy one.

³I have commanded My sanctified ones; I have even summoned My warriors to execute My wrath and exult in My triumph.

⁸Therefore wait for Me,” declares the Lord, “until the day I rise to testify. For My decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out upon them My indignation—all My burning anger. For all the earth will be consumed by the fire of My jealousy.

¹⁹Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies assembled to wage war against the One seated on the horse, and against His army.

²⁰But the beast was captured along with the false prophet, who on its behalf had performed signs deceiving those who had the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. Both the beast and the false prophet were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur.

¹⁴The armies of heaven, dressed in fine linen, white and pure, follow Him on white horses.

⁷and to grant relief to you who are oppressed and to us as well. This will take place when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels

¹²But they do not know the thoughts of the Lord or understand His plan, for He has gathered them like sheaves to the threshing floor.

²I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. There I will enter into judgment against them concerning My people, My inheritance, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations as they divided up My land.

¹³The Lord arises to contend; He stands to judge the people.

⁹before the Lord, for He comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity.

⁴Then He will judge between the nations and arbitrate for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer take up the sword against nation, nor train anymore for war.

¹³before the Lord, for He is coming—He is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in His faithfulness.

⁴On that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half the mountain moving to the north and half to the south.

¹⁵Then another angel came out of the temple, crying out in a loud voice to the One seated on the cloud, “Swing Your sickle and reap, because the time has come to harvest, for the crop of the earth is ripe.”

¹⁶So the One seated on the cloud swung His sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested.

¹¹Also for you, O Judah, a harvest is appointed, when I restore My people from captivity.

²⁹And as soon as the grain is ripe, he swings the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

³³For this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “The Daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time it is trampled. In just a little while her harvest time will come.”

³“I have trodden the winepress alone, and no one from the nations was with Me. I trampled them in My anger and trod them down in My fury; their blood spattered My garments, and all My clothes were stained.

³⁹and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.

²The Lord is angry with all the nations and furious with all their armies. He will devote them to destruction; He will give them over to slaughter.

³Their slain will be left unburied, and the stench of their corpses will rise; the mountains will flow with their blood.

²I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. There I will enter into judgment against them concerning My people, My inheritance, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations as they divided up My land.

²Watch out for those dogs, those workers of evil, those mutilators of the flesh!

¹⁴These are demonic spirits that perform signs and go out to all the kings of the earth, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty.

¹⁵“Behold, I am coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who remains awake and clothed, so that he will not go naked and let his shame be exposed.”

¹⁵Alas for the day! For the Day of the Lord is near, and it will come as destruction from the Almighty.

⁷And by that same word, the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

¹⁰Before them the earth quakes; the heavens tremble. The sun and moon grow dark, and the stars lose their brightness.

²⁵There will be signs in the sun and moon and stars, and on the earth dismay among the nations, bewildered by the roaring of the sea and the surging of the waves.

²⁶Men will faint from fear and anxiety over what is coming upon the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

³¹The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and awesome Day of the Lord.

²⁹Immediately after the tribulation of those days: ‘The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.’

¹⁰For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light. The rising sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light.

¹²And I watched as the Lamb opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black like sackcloth of goat hair, and the whole moon turned blood red,

¹³and the stars of the sky fell to the earth like unripe figs dropping from a tree shaken by a great wind.

²He said: “The Lord roars from Zion and raises His voice from Jerusalem; the pastures of the shepherds mourn, and the summit of Carmel withers.”

¹⁰Before them the earth quakes; the heavens tremble. The sun and moon grow dark, and the stars lose their brightness.

¹¹The Lord raises His voice in the presence of His army. Indeed, His camp is very large, for mighty are those who obey His command. For the Day of the Lord is great and very dreadful. Who can endure it?

³⁰So you are to prophesy all these words against them and say to them: ‘The Lord will roar from on high; He will raise His voice from His holy habitation. He will roar loudly over His pasture; like those who tread the grapes, He will call out with a shout against all the inhabitants of the earth.

³¹The tumult will resound to the ends of the earth because the Lord brings a charge against the nations. He brings judgment on all mankind and puts the wicked to the sword,’” declares the Lord.

¹⁰The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.

¹⁹O Lord, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in the day of distress, the nations will come to You from the ends of the earth, and they will say, “Our fathers inherited nothing but lies, worthless idols of no benefit at all.

¹³The Lord goes forth like a mighty one; He stirs up His zeal like a warrior. He shouts; yes, He roars in triumph over His enemies:

²⁷Then you will know that I am present in Israel and that I am the Lord your God, and there is no other. My people will never again be put to shame.

¹⁵Look to the mountains—the feet of one who brings good news, who proclaims peace! Celebrate your feasts, O Judah; fulfill your vows. For the wicked will never again march through you; they will be utterly cut off.

¹Awake, awake, clothe yourself with strength, O Zion! Put on your garments of splendor, O Jerusalem, holy city! For the uncircumcised and unclean will no longer enter you.

³Whoever remains in Zion and whoever is left in Jerusalem will be called holy—all in Jerusalem who are recorded among the living—

²⁷But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who practices an abomination or a lie, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

²³This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “When I restore them from captivity, they will once again speak this word in the land of Judah and in its cities: ‘May the Lord bless you, O righteous dwelling place, O holy mountain.’

⁶Then the lame will leap like a deer and the mute tongue will shout for joy. For waters will gush forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.

¹Then the man brought me back to the entrance of the temple, and I saw water flowing from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was coming down from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar.

²Next he brought me out through the north gate and led me around the outside to the outer gate facing east, and there I saw the water trickling out from the south side.

¹Then the angel showed me a river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb

²down the middle of the main street of the city. On either side of the river stood a tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit and yielding a fresh crop for each month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

⁸And on that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half of it toward the Eastern Sea and the other half toward the Western Sea, in summer and winter alike.

¹³“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when the plowman will overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes, the sower of seed. The mountains will drip with sweet wine, with which all the hills will flow.

¹⁴I will restore My people Israel from captivity; they will rebuild and inhabit the ruined cities. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit.

¹While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with the daughters of Moab,

¹This is the burden against Egypt: Behold, the Lord rides on a swift cloud; He is coming to Egypt. The idols of Egypt will tremble before Him, and the hearts of the Egyptians will melt within them.

²“So I will incite Egyptian against Egyptian; brother will fight against brother, neighbor against neighbor, city against city, and kingdom against kingdom.

¹⁸And if the people of Egypt will not go up and enter in, then the rain will not fall on them; this will be the plague with which the Lord strikes the nations who do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.

¹⁹This will be the punishment of Egypt and of all the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.

³⁵May the violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon,” says the dweller of Zion. “May my blood be on the dwellers of Chaldea,” says Jerusalem.

¹Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²“Son of man, set your face against Mount Seir and prophesy against it,

¹¹This is what the Lord says: “For three transgressions of Edom, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because he pursued his brother with the sword and stifled all compassion; his anger raged continually, and his fury flamed incessantly.

¹²So I will send fire upon Teman to consume the citadels of Bozrah.”

¹⁰I will bring them back from Egypt and gather them from Assyria. I will bring them to Gilead and Lebanon until no more room is found for them.

²⁵They will live in the land that I gave to My servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They will live there forever with their children and grandchildren, and My servant David will be their prince forever.

²⁰Look upon Zion, the city of our appointed feasts. Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a peaceful pasture, a tent that does not wander; its tent pegs will not be pulled up, nor will any of its cords be broken.

¹⁵I will firmly plant them in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land that I have given them,” says the Lord your God.

⁴when the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains from the heart of Jerusalem by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of fire.

³And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man, and He will dwell with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God.

²⁵I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols.

²⁹I will save you from all your uncleanness. I will summon the grain and make it plentiful, and I will not bring famine upon you.

³⁵The perimeter of the city will be 18,000 cubits, and from that day on the name of the city will be: THE Lord IS THERE.”

¹⁷Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who dwells in Zion, My holy mountain. Jerusalem will be holy, never again to be overrun by foreigners.