Joel 3

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 Jehoshʹaphat, and I will enter into judgment with them there, on account 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 given a boy for a harlot, 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 requite your deed upon 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, removing them far from their own border. ⁷But now I will stir them up from the place to which you have sold them, and I will requite your deed upon your own head. ⁸I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the sons of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeʹans, to a nation far off; for the Lord has spoken.”

⁹Proclaim this among the nations:

Prepare 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 nations round about,

gather yourselves there.

Bring down thy warriors, O Lord.

¹²Let the nations bestir themselves,

and come up to the valley of Jehoshʹaphat;

for there I will sit to judge

all the nations round about.

¹³Put in the sickle,

for the harvest is ripe.

Go in, tread,

for the wine press is full.

The vats overflow,

for their wickedness 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.

¹⁶And the Lord roars from Zion,

and utters his voice from Jerusalem,

and the heavens and the earth shake.

But the Lord is a refuge to his people,

a stronghold to the people of Israel.

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

who dwell 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 stream beds 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 for ever,

and Jerusalem to all generations.

²¹I will avenge their blood, and I will not clear the guilty,

for the Lord dwells in Zion.”