Take with you words and return to the Lord; say to him, “Take away all iniquity; accept what is good, and we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips.
Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride on horses; and we will say no more, ‘Our God,’ to the work of our hands. In you the orphan finds mercy.”
I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall blossom like the lily; he shall take root like the trees of Lebanon;
his shoots shall spread out; his beauty shall be like the olive, and his fragrance like Lebanon.
They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow; they shall flourish like the grain; they shall blossom like the vine; their fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon.
Whoever is wise, let him understand these things; whoever is discerning, let him know them; for the ways of the Lord are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.
The word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel:
Hear this, you elders; give ear, all inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers?
What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten.
Awake, you drunkards, and weep, and wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth.
For a nation has come up against my land, powerful and beyond number; its teeth are lions' teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness.
Lament like a virgin wearing sackcloth for the bridegroom of her youth.
The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests mourn, the ministers of the Lord.
The fields are destroyed, the ground mourns, because the grain is destroyed, the wine dries up, the oil languishes.
Be ashamed, O tillers of the soil; wail, O vinedressers, for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished.
The vine dries up; the fig tree languishes. Pomegranate, palm, and apple, all the trees of the field are dried up, and gladness dries up from the children of man.
Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests; wail, O ministers of the altar. Go in, pass the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my God! Because grain offering and drink offering are withheld from the house of your God.
Consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord.
Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is near, and as destruction from the Almighty it comes.
Is not the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God?
The seed shrivels under the clods; the storehouses are desolate; the granaries are torn down because the grain has dried up.
How the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are perplexed because there is no pasture for them; even the flocks of sheep suffer.
To you, O Lord, I call. For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and flame has burned all the trees of the field.
Even the beasts of the field pant for you because the water brooks are dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.
Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming; it is near,
a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains a great and powerful people; their like has never been before, nor will be again after them through the years of all generations.
Fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns. The land is like the garden of Eden before them, but behind them a desolate wilderness, and nothing escapes them.
Their appearance is like the appearance of horses, and like war horses they run.
As with the rumbling of chariots, they leap on the tops of the mountains, like the crackling of a flame of fire devouring the stubble, like a powerful army drawn up for battle.
Like warriors they charge; like soldiers they scale the wall. They march each on his way; they do not swerve from their paths.
They do not jostle one another; each marches in his path; they burst through the weapons and are not halted.
They leap upon the city, they run upon the walls, they climb up into the houses, they enter through the windows like a thief.
The earth quakes before them; the heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining.
The Lord utters his voice before his army, for his camp is exceedingly great; he who executes his word is powerful. For the day of the Lord is great and very awesome; who can endure it?
“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.
Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God?
Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly;
gather the people. Consecrate the congregation; assemble the elders; gather the children, even nursing infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber.
Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep and say, “Spare your people, O Lord, and make not your heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”
Then the Lord became jealous for his land and had pity on his people.
The Lord answered and said to his people, “Behold, I am sending to you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations.
“I will remove the northerner far from you, and drive him into a parched and desolate land, his vanguard into the eastern sea, and his rear guard into the western sea; the stench and foul smell of him will rise, for he has done great things.
“Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things!
Fear not, you beasts of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green; the tree bears its fruit; the fig tree and vine give their full yield.
“Be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given the early rain for your vindication; he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the latter rain, as before.
“The threshing floors shall be full of grain; the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.
I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you.
“You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame.
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 put to shame.
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