Jonathan Joel

Joel’s Prophecy

1 The prophetic message from the Lord that came to Joel son of Pethuel.

Locusts and Drought

2 Listen to this, elders. Pay attention, everyone who lives in the land. Has anything like this happened in your lifetime or in the time of your ancestors? 3 Tell your children about it, and have your children tell their children, and their children the generation after them. 4 What the crawling locust left, the swarming locust ate. What the swarming locust left, the flying locust ate. What the flying locust left, the creeping locust ate.

5 Wake up and cry, you drunkards. All you who drink wine, wail over the sweet wine, because it has been kept from your mouths. 6 A powerful nation, too numerous to count, has come up against my land. Its teeth are a lion’s teeth, and its fangs are like those of a young lion. 7 It has devastated the fruit of my people’s vines and drained the life from their fig trees. It has stripped off the bark and thrown it away, leaving the branches white.

8 Community of Israel, mourn like a young woman wearing sackcloth to grieve for the husband of her youth. 9 Offerings and wine offerings have stopped in the Lord’s sanctuary. The priests who serve in the Lord’s sanctuary are in mourning. 10 The fields have been plundered, and the land lies ruined. The grain has vanished, the vines have dried up, and the olives have fallen.

11 Be appalled, farmers. Wail, vineyard workers, over the wheat and barley, because the harvest of the fields is lost. 12 The vines have dried up, and the fig trees have withered. Pomegranates, palms, apple trees, all the trees of the fields have dried up, because joy has disappeared from human life.

A Call to Fasting

13 Put on sackcloth and mourn, priests. Wail, you who serve at the altar. Come in and spend the night in sackcloth, you who serve before my God, because offerings and wine offerings have been kept from your God’s sanctuary. 14 Declare a fast and announce an assembly. Gather the elders and everyone who lives in the land. Enter the sanctuary of the Lord your God and pray before the Lord.

15 What misery that day will bring! The day that is to come from the Lord is near. It will come like devastation from the Almighty. 16 Even as we watch, the grain is lost. Joy and celebration have stopped in our God’s sanctuary. 17 The wine jars are rotting beneath their seals. The storehouses lie deserted, the granaries have collapsed, because the grain has vanished. 18 How the livestock groan! The herds of cattle wander in confusion because they have no pasture. Even the flocks of sheep have been devastated.

19 Lord, I pray before you, because an east wind as fierce as fire has destroyed the settlements of the wilderness, and flames have consumed all the trees of the fields. 20 Even the wild animals wait hopefully before you, because the streams have dried up, and an east wind as fierce as fire has destroyed the settlements of the wilderness.

The Approaching Army

1 Blow the ram’s horn in Zion. Sound the alarm on my holy mountain. Let everyone in the land tremble, because the day that is to come from the Lord has arrived. It is near. 2 It is a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick mist. Like morning light spreading over the mountains comes a great and powerful people. There has never been anything like it, nor will there be again through the years of generation after generation. 3 Fire consumes everything ahead of them, and flames destroy everything behind them. The land ahead of them is like the garden of Eden, but behind them it is a deserted wilderness. There is no escape for the wicked.

4 They look like horses, and they run like horsemen. 5 They leap over the mountaintops with the sound of chariots, with the sound of flames consuming dry straw, like a powerful people who know the battle formations. 6 The nations tremble before them. Every face is coated black like a cooking pot.

7 They run like warriors and climb the wall like soldiers. Each advances on his own path, and they do not hold up their advance. 8 They do not push one another. Each goes along his own track. Wherever they are sent, they go and kill, and they accept no money. 9 Armed in the city, they run along the wall, climb into the houses, and come through the windows like thieves.

10 The land ahead of them lies ruined, and the heavens shake. The sun and moon grow dark, and the stars withdraw their light. 11 The Lord raises his Memra before his army, because his army is vast, and those who carry out his Memra are powerful. The day that is to come from the Lord is great and overwhelmingly fierce. Who can endure it?

Return to the Lord

12 “Even now,” says the Lord, “return to my worship with all your heart, with fasting, tears, and mourning.”

13 Remove the evil from your hearts, rather than tearing your clothes, and return to the worship of the Lord your God. He is gracious and compassionate, he holds back anger and does abundant good, and he turns back his Memra from bringing disaster. 14 Anyone who knows he has sins must turn away from them, and he will be treated with compassion. Anyone who turns back will have his sins forgiven and receive blessings and comfort. His prayer will be like someone presenting offerings and wine offerings in the sanctuary of the Lord your God.

15 Blow the ram’s horn in Zion. Declare a fast and announce an assembly. 16 Gather the people and prepare the congregation. Bring the elders together, and bring the children and nursing infants. Let the bridegroom come out of his bedroom, and the bride out of her bridal chamber.

17 Between the entrance hall and the altar, let the priests who serve before the Lord weep and say, “Lord, spare your people. Do not hand over your inheritance to disgrace, for the nations to rule over them. Why should the nations say, ‘Where are those who were rescued by their God’s Memra?’”

The Lord Restores His People

18 Then the Lord spared his land and had compassion on his people.

19 The Lord answered his people, “I am blessing the grain, wine, and oil for you, and you will have enough to satisfy you. I will never again expose you to the disgrace of hunger among the nations.

20 “I will drive the people coming from the north far away from you, and exile them to a deserted, ruined land, their front toward the eastern sea and their rear toward the western sea. Their stench will rise, and their foul smell will spread, because they have done so much evil.”

21 Do not be afraid, land of Israel. Celebrate and be glad, because the Lord has done abundant good in you for his people. 22 Do not be afraid, wild animals, because the settlements in the wilderness are covered in bloom. The trees have produced their fruit, and the fig trees and vines have borne their crops.

23 People of Zion, celebrate and be glad in the Memra of the Lord your God, because he has restored your teacher to you in righteousness. He sends down the early rain at its proper time, and the late rain in the month of Nisan. 24 The threshing floors will fill with grain, the wine vats will overflow with wine, and the oil presses with oil.

25 “I will repay you with good years for the years when nations, languages, rulers, and kingdoms plundered you, the punishment of my great army that I sent against you.

26 “You will eat and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has done wonders for you. My people, the house of Israel, will never again be put to shame.

27 “You will know that I have made my Shekinah dwell among the house of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God, and there is no other. My people, the house of Israel, will never again be put to shame.”

The Gift of the Spirit

1 “After that I will pour out my holy spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your elders will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions. 2 In those days I will pour out my holy spirit even on male and female slaves.

3 “I will place signs in heaven and on earth, blood, fire, and columns of smoke. 4 The sun will turn to darkness and the moon to blood before the great and fearsome day that is to come from the Lord arrives.”

5 Everyone who prays in the Lord’s name will be rescued, because there will be deliverance on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, as the Lord has said. Those whom the Lord appoints will be rescued.

Judgment on the Nations

1 “In those days, at that time, when I bring back the captives of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, 2 I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the valley where judgment is given. There I will punish them for what they did to my people, my inheritance Israel, whom they scattered among the nations. They divided up my land 3 and cast lots for my people. They handed over a boy as payment for a prostitute and sold a girl for wine to drink.

4 “What do you amount to before me, Tyre and Sidon and all the regions of the Philistines? Are you repaying me for something? If you are repaying me, I will quickly bring your deeds back on your own heads. 5 You took my silver and gold and brought my precious treasures into your temples. 6 You sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks to take them far away from their own territory. 7 I am bringing them back openly from the place to which you sold them, and I will bring your deeds back on your own heads. 8 I will hand your sons and daughters over to the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the people of Sheba, a distant nation. This has been decreed by the Lord’s Memra.”

The Nations Assemble for Battle

9 Announce this among the nations. Prepare the fighters. Let the warriors come openly. Let all the soldiers approach and advance. 10 Turn your plowshares into swords, and your sickles into spears. Let the weak say, “I am a warrior.” 11 Let all the nations from the surrounding lands gather and come near. There the Lord will break the power of their warriors.

12 “Let the nations come openly and advance to the valley where judgment is given, because there I will reveal myself to judge all the surrounding nations. 13 Strike them with the sword, because the time of their end has come. Go down and trample their slain warriors like grapes being trodden in a winepress. Spill their blood, because their evil is so great.”

14 Armies upon armies in the valley where judgment is given! The day that is to come from the Lord is near in the valley where judgment is given. 15 The sun and moon grow dark, and the stars withdraw their light.

The Lord Protects His People

16 The Lord will call out from Zion and raise his Memra from Jerusalem, and heaven and earth will shake. But the Lord supports his people and helps the people of Israel.

17 “You will know that I, the Lord your God, have made my Shekinah dwell in Zion, my holy mountain. Jerusalem will be holy, and foreigners will never again pass through it.”

18 At that time the mountains will drip sweet wine, and the hills will flow with abundance. All the streams of the house of Judah will flow with water. A spring will come out of the Lord’s sanctuary and water the valley of Shittim.

19 Egypt will become a wasteland, and Edom a deserted wilderness, because they attacked the people of Judah and shed innocent blood in Judah’s land. 20 But Judah will be inhabited forever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation.

21 “I will again avenge their blood on the nations, even though I have already avenged it,” says the Lord, who has made his Shekinah dwell in Zion.