AFV2020 - Joel

Chapter 1

1:1  The Word of the LORD that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel.

1:2  Hear this, you old men, and give ear, all you inhabitants of the land. Has this been in your days or even in the days of your fathers?

1:3  Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.

1:4  That which the creeping locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten. And that which the swarming locust has left, the locust larvae has eaten. And that which the locust larvae has left, the destroying locust has eaten.

1:5  Awake, drunkards, and weep; and howl, all you drinkers of wine because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth,

1:6  For a nation has come up on My land, strong and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the jaw teeth of a great lion.

1:7  He has laid My vine waste and splintered My fig tree. He has stripped it and cast it away; its branches are bared white.

1:8  Weep like a virgin clothed with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

1:9  The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests, the LORD'S ministers, mourn.

1:10  The field is wasted; the land mourns, for the grain is wasted. The new wine is dried up; the fresh oil is wasted away.

1:11  Be ashamed, O you husbandmen; howl, O you vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field has perished.

1:12  The vine is dried up, and the fig tree is wasted away, the pomegranate and the palm tree, and the apple tree; all the trees of the field are dried up, for joy has withered away from the sons of men.

1:13  Gird yourselves and lament, you priests; howl, you ministers of the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, for the grain offering and the drink offering are held back from the house of your God.

1:14  Sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the elders and all the people of the land unto the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD.

1:15  Alas for the day! For the day of the LORD is at hand, and it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.

1:16  Is not the food cut off before our eyes, and joy and gladness from the house of our God?

1:17  The seed is rotten under their clods; the storage bins are desolate; the barns are broken down, for the grain has dried up.

1:18  How the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are troubled because they have no pasture. Yes, the flocks of sheep are devastated.

1:19  O LORD, to You will I cry; for the fire has burned up the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame has burned all the trees of the field.

1:20  The beasts of the field also cry to You; for the rivers of water are dried up, and the fire has burned up the pastures of the wilderness.

Chapter 2

2:1  Blow the ram's horn in Zion, and sound an alarm in My holy mountain!" Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the LORD comes, for it is near at hand—

2:2  A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness. As the morning is spread across the mountains, so comes a great people and a mighty people; there has never been the like, nor shall there ever be again, even to the years of many generations.

2:3  A fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns. The land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness—and nothing shall escape them.

2:4  Their appearance is as the appearance of horses; and as war horses, so they run.

2:5  They shall leap with the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains, with the noise of a flame of fire that devours the stubble, like a mighty people set in battle array.

2:6  In their presence the people shall greatly tremble; all faces shall grow pale.

2:7  They shall run like mighty men. They shall climb the wall like men of war, and they shall march each one in his path, and they shall not break their ranks.

2:8  And each one shall not crowd another; they go every one in his own path. And when they fall upon the sword, they shall not be wounded.

2:9  They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall; they shall climb up upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief.

2:10  The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble. The sun and the moon shall grow dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.

2:11  And the LORD shall utter His voice before His army; for His camp is exceedingly great; for powerful is He who executes His Word, for the day of the LORD is great and very terrible; and who can endure it?

2:12  "Therefore even now," says the LORD, "turn to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning.

2:13  Yes, rend your heart and not your garments, and return to the LORD your God: for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and He repents of the evil.

2:14  Who knows if He will return and repent and leave a blessing behind Him—a grain offering and a drink offering unto the LORD your God?"

2:15  Blow a ram's horn in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly.

2:16  Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children and those who suck the breasts. Let the bridegroom go forth out of his chamber, and the bride out of her room.

2:17  Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, "Spare Your people, O LORD, and give not Your inheritance to shame, that the nations should rule over them. Why should they say among the people, 'Where is their God?' ”

2:18  Then the LORD will be jealous for His land and pity His people.

2:19  Yea, the LORD will answer and say to His people, "Behold, I will send you grain, and wine, and oil, and you shall be satisfied with them. And I will no more make you a curse among the nations.

2:20  But I will remove the northern army far off from you, and will drive him into a barren and deserted land, with his face toward the eastern sea and his back toward the western sea. And his stench shall come up, and his rotten odor shall come up because he has magnified his deeds.

2:21  Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice, for the LORD will magnify his deeds.

2:22  Do not be afraid, beasts of the field; for the pastures of the wilderness grow green; for the tree bears its fruit, and the fig tree and the vine yield their strength.

2:23  Be glad then, children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God, for He has given you the former rain in just measure, and He will cause the rain to come down for you, the former rain and the latter rain as before.

2:24  And the threshing floors shall be full of wheat, and the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.

2:25  And I will restore to you the years which the swarming locust has eaten, the locust larvae, and the destroying locust, and the cutting locust, My great army which I sent among you.

2:26  And you shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, who has dealt with you wondrously; and My people shall never again be ashamed.

2:27  And you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the LORD your God, and there is none else; and My people shall never again be ashamed.

2:28  And afterward it shall be that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh. And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; your old men shall dream dreams; your young men shall see visions.

2:29  And also I will pour out My Spirit upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days.

2:30  And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth—blood and fire and pillars of smoke.

2:31  The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD.

2:32  And it shall be that whoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be saved; for salvation shall be in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, as the LORD has said, and among the remnant whom the LORD shall call."

Chapter 3

3:1  "For, behold, in those days and in that time—when I will bring back the exiles of Judah and Jerusalem—

3:2  I will also gather all nations and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat. And I will fight with them there for My people and for My inheritance Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and divided My land.

3:3  And they have cast lots for My people, and have given a boy for a prostitute, and sold a girl for wine, so that they might drink.

3:4  Yea, and what have you to do with Me, O Tyre and Sidon, and all the borders of Philistia? Will you give Me a reward? And if you reward Me, swiftly and speedily I will return your reward upon your own head,

3:5  Because you have taken My silver and My gold, and have carried My good treasures into your temples.

3:6  You have also sold the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem to the children of the Greeks, that you might remove them far from their border.

3:7  Behold, I will raise them up out of the place where you have sold them, and will return your reward upon your own head.

3:8  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 people far off; for the LORD has spoken it."

3:9  Proclaim this among the nations, "Prepare for war!" Wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up.

3:10  Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, "I am strong."

3:11  Gather yourselves and come, all you nations, and gather yourselves together all around; cause Your mighty ones to come down there, O LORD.

3:12  Let the nations be awakened and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat; for there I will sit to judge all the nations all around.

3:13  Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, come down; for the press is full; the vats overflow—for their wickedness is great.

3:14  Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision; for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision!

3:15  The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.

3:16  The LORD shall also roar out of Zion and utter His voice from Jerusalem. And the heavens and the earth shall shake. But the LORD will be the hope of His people and the strength of the children of Israel.

3:17  "Then you shall know that I am the LORD your God dwelling in Zion, My holy mountain. And Jerusalem shall be a holy thing, and no stranger shall pass through her any more.

3:18  And it shall be, in that day the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters; and a fountain shall come forth from the house of the LORD, and shall water the valley of Acacias.

3:19  Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness, from violence done against the children of Judah, whose innocent blood they poured out in their land.

3:20  But Judah will dwell forever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation.

3:21  And I will cleanse their blood which I did not cleanse; and the LORD is dwelling in Zion."