Joel 3

Yahweh’s Judgment on the Nations

¹For look! In those days, and in that time, when I will return the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem,[#Joel 3:1–21 in the English Bible is 4:1–21 in the Hebrew Bible; #Or “restore”]

²I will gather all the nations, and I will bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat, and I will argue a case against them there concerning my people and my inheritance Israel whom they have scattered among the nations, and my land that they have divided.[#Literally “a matter with them”]

³For my people they cast lots, and they traded the male child for the prostitute, and the female child they sold for wine and they drank it.[#Hebrew “lot”; #Literally “gave”]

⁴What are you to me, O Tyre and O Sidon, and all of the regions of Philistia? Are you repaying to me what is deserved? If you are recompensing me, I will return swiftly and quickly what you deserve on your head!

⁵For you have taken my silver and my gold, and my beautiful treasures you have carried into your temples.

⁶And the sons of Judah and Jerusalem you sold to the sons of the Greeks, in order to remove them from their border.

⁷Look! I am rousing them from the place where you have sold them, and I will return what you deserve on your head!

⁸I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans and to a nation far away, for Yahweh has spoken.

Yahweh’s Judgment in the Valley of Jehoshaphat

⁹Proclaim this among the nations:

let them approach and come up;

¹⁰Beat your cutting tools of iron into swords

¹¹Hurry and come,

Bring down your mighty warriors, O Yahweh!

¹²Let the nations be roused and let them come up

for there I will sit to judge

¹³Send forth the sickle,

for the winepress is full!

¹⁴Commotion, commotion

For the day of Yahweh is near

¹⁵The sun and the moon grow dark,

¹⁶And Yahweh roars from Zion;

and the heavens and the earth shake.

But Yahweh is a refuge for his people,

¹⁷And you will know that I, Yahweh your God,

And Jerusalem will be a place of holiness,

¹⁸And it will happen on that day;

the mountains will drip new wine,

A spring from the house of Yahweh will come forth,

¹⁹Egypt will become a desolation,

because of the violence they did against the children of Judah,

²⁰But Judah will be inhabited forever,

²¹I will cleanse their bloodguilt that I did not cleanse,[#Literally “I will not leave unpunished their blood”; #Or “I did not consider innocent”]