Joel 4

¹For see, in those days and at that time,[#Jer 33:15; 50:4, 20.]

when I restore the fortunes

of Judah and Jerusalem,

²I will gather all the nations

and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat.

There I will enter into judgment with them

on behalf of my people, my heritage, Israel;

Because they scattered them among the nations,

they divided up my land.

³For my people they cast lots,

trading a young boy for the price of a prostitute,

exchanging a young girl for the wine they drank.

⁴Moreover, what are you doing to me, Tyre and Sidon, and all the regions of Philistia? Are you paying me back for something? If you are, I will very quickly turn your deeds back upon your own head.[#This prose material may be a later addition to the book. It illustrates a common biblical theme (cf. Ps 7:16; 9:16; 35:8; 37:14–15; 57:7), having one’s evil deed (selling Judahites into slavery) turned into one’s own punishment (being sold into slavery by the Judahites).; #Ob 15.]

⁵You took my silver and my gold and brought my priceless treasures into your temples!

⁶You sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks, taking them far from their own country!

⁷Look! I am rousing them from the place to which you sold them, and I will turn your deeds back upon your own head.

⁸I will sell your sons and daughters to the Judahites who will sell them to the Sabeans, a distant nation. The Lord has spoken![#: traders from the southwestern tip of the Arabian peninsula, present-day Yemen (cf. 1 Kgs 10:1–2; Ps 72:10; Jer 6:20).]

⁹Announce this to the nations:

Proclaim a holy war!

Alert the warriors!

Let all the soldiers

report and march!

¹⁰Beat your plowshares into swords,[#The Lord directs the troops to forge military weapons out of the agricultural tools necessary for life during peacetime. In Is 2:4 and Mi 4:3, both in contexts presuming the defeat of Israel’s enemies, this imagery is reversed.]

and your pruning knives into spears;

let the weakling boast, “I am a warrior!”

¹¹Hurry and come, all you neighboring peoples,

assemble there!

Bring down, Lord , your warriors!

¹²Let the nations rouse themselves and come up

to the Valley of Jehoshaphat;

For there I will sit in judgment

upon all the neighboring nations.

¹³Wield the sickle,[#Is 63:1–6; Rev 14:15.]

for the harvest is ripe;

Come and tread,

for the wine press is full;

The vats overflow,

for their crimes are numerous.

¹⁴Crowds upon crowds

in the Valley of Decision;

For near is the day of the Lord

in the Valley of Decision.

¹⁵Sun and moon are darkened,

and the stars withhold their brightness,

¹⁶The Lord roars from Zion,

and from Jerusalem raises his voice,

The heavens and the earth quake,

but the Lord will be a shelter for his people,

a fortress for the people of Israel.

¹⁷Then you will know that I the Lord am your God,[#: this verse further develops the motif of knowledge introduced in 2:27. The Judahites will learn that the Lord is present in their economic prosperity and political autonomy, even though they did not associate God’s presence with their crop failure.; #Ob 17; Na 2:1.]

dwelling on Zion, my holy mountain;

Jerusalem will be holy,

and strangers will never again travel through her.

¹⁸On that day[#Images of agricultural abundance illustrate the harmony and order Joel expects the Lord to establish in Judah; like 2:18–27, this section reverses the deprivation and drought of chap. 1. ord : streams of water flowing from the Temple of an ideal Jerusalem also appear in Ez 47:1. : or “the ravine of the acacia trees”; while there is a Shittim east of the Jordan, the reference here is probably to that rocky part of the Kidron Valley southeast of Jerusalem, an arid region where acacia trees flourished.]

the mountains will drip new wine,

and the hills flow with milk,

All the streams of Judah

will flow with water.

A spring will rise from the house of the Lord ,

watering the Valley of Shittim.

¹⁹Egypt will be a waste,

Edom a desolate wilderness,

Because of violence done to the Judahites,

because they shed innocent blood in their land.

²⁰But Judah will be inhabited forever,

and Jerusalem for all generations.

²¹I will avenge their blood,

and I will not acquit the guilt.

The Lord dwells in Zion.