MKJV - 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 dwellers of the land. Has this been in your days or even in the days of your fathers?

1:3  Tell your sons of it, and let your sons tell their sons, and their sons 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 stripping locust has eaten.

1:5  Awake, drunkards, and weep; and howl, all 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 lioness.

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

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

1:9  The food 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 oil tree droops.

1:11  Be ashamed, husbandmen; howl, 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 droops, the pomegranate and the palm tree, and the apple tree; all the trees of the field are dried up, because joy has dried up from the sons of men.

1:13  Gird up and lament, priests; howl, ministers of the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, ministers of my God. For the food offering and the drink offering are held back from the house of your God.

1:14  Set apart a fast; call a solemn gathering; gather the elders and all the people of the land into the house of the LORD your God, and cry to the Lord,

1:15  Alas for the day! For the day of the LORD is at hand, and it shall come as a ruin 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 laid waste; 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 destroyed.

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 a 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 spread on the mountains; a great people and a strong people; there has not been ever 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. Yes, and nothing shall escape them.

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

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

2:6  Before their face the people shall be much pained; all faces shall gather blackness.

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

2:8  And each one shall not press his brother; they each go in his paths. And if they fall behind their weapons, they shall not be cut off.

2:9  They shall rush on the city; they shall run on the wall; they shall climb up on the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief.

2:10  The earth shall tremble before them; the heavens shall shake. The sun and the moon shall grow dark, and the stars shall gather in their light.

2:11  And the LORD shall utter His voice before His army; for His camp is very great; for strong is He who does His word. For the day of the LORD is great and very terrible; and who can stand it?

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

2:13  Yes, tear your heart and not your robes, and turn to the LORD your God: for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and He pities because of the evil.

2:14  Who knows if He will turn and have pity and leave a blessing behind Him, a food offering and a drink offering to the LORD your God?

2:15  Blow a trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn gathering.

2:16  Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, gather 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, Have pity on Your people, O LORD, and give not Your inheritance to shame, for a proverb among those of the nations. 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  Yes, 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 it. And I will no more make you a curse among the nations.

2:20  But I will remove the northern army far from you, and will drive him into a barren and deserted land, with his face toward the eastern sea and his rear toward the western sea. And his stench shall come up, and his ill odor shall come up, because he was doing great things.

2:21  Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice. For the LORD will do great things.

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, sons of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God. For He has given you the former rain according to righteousness, and He will cause the rain to come down for you, the former rain and the latter rain in the first month.

2:24  And the 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 stripping 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 wonderfully; and My people shall never 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 no one else; and My people shall never be ashamed.

2:28  And it shall be afterward, 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 on the slaves and on the slave women 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, 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 in the remnant whom the LORD shall call.

Chapter 3

3:1  For, behold, in those days and in that time, when I will bring again 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 turn your reward on 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 sons of Judah and the sons of Jerusalem to the sons of the Greeks, that you might remove them far from their border.

3:7  Behold, I am rising them out of the place where you have sold them, and will turn your reward on your own head.

3:8  And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the sons 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 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 gather in their light.

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 sons of Israel.

3:17  So 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 aliens 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 Shittim.

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

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

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