Joel 3

The Lord Judges the Nations

¹“For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem,²I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. And I will enter into judgment with them there, on behalf of my people and my heritage Israel, because they have scattered them among the nations and have divided up my land,³and have cast lots for my people, and have traded a boy for a prostitute, and have sold a girl for wine and have drunk it.

⁴“What are you to me, O Tyre and Sidon, and all the regions of Philistia? Are you paying me back for something? If you are paying me back, I will return your payment on your own head swiftly and speedily.⁵For you have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried my rich treasures into your temples.⁶You have sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks in order to remove them far from their own border.⁷Behold, I will stir them up from the place to which you have sold them, and I will return your payment on your own head.⁸I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans, to a nation far away, for the Lord has spoken.”

⁹Proclaim this among the nations:

Consecrate for war;

stir up the mighty men.

Let all the men of war draw near;

let them come up.

¹⁰Beat your plowshares into swords,

and your pruning hooks into spears;

let the weak say, “I am a warrior.”

¹¹Hasten and come,

all you surrounding nations,

and gather yourselves there.

Bring down your warriors, O Lord.

¹²Let the nations stir themselves up

and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat;

for there I will sit to judge

all the surrounding nations.

¹³Put in the sickle,

for the harvest is ripe.

Go in, tread,

for the winepress is full.

The vats overflow,

for their evil is great.

¹⁴Multitudes, multitudes,

in the valley of decision!

For the day of the Lord is near

in the valley of decision.

¹⁵The sun and the moon are darkened,

and the stars withdraw their shining.

¹⁶The Lord roars from Zion,

and utters his voice from Jerusalem,

and the heavens and the earth quake.

But the Lord is a refuge to his people,

a stronghold to the people of Israel.

The Glorious Future of Judah

¹⁷“So you shall know that I am the Lord your God,

who dwells in Zion, my holy mountain.

And Jerusalem shall be holy,

and strangers shall never again pass through it.

¹⁸“And in that day

the mountains shall drip sweet wine,

and the hills shall flow with milk,

and all the streambeds of Judah

shall flow with water;

and a fountain shall come forth from the house of the Lord

and water the Valley of Shittim.

¹⁹“Egypt shall become a desolation

and Edom a desolate wilderness,

for the violence done to the people of Judah,

because they have shed innocent blood in their land.

²⁰But Judah shall be inhabited forever,

and Jerusalem to all generations.

²¹I will avenge their blood,

blood I have not avenged,

for the Lord dwells in Zion.”