1:1 The word of the Lord which came to Joel, the son of Pethuel.

1:2 Give ear to this, you old men, and take note, you people of

the land. Has this ever been in your days, or in the days of

your fathers?

1:3 Give the story of it to your children, and let them give it

to their children, and their children to another generation.

1:4 What the worm did not make a meal of, has been taken by the

locust; and what the locust did not take, has been food for the

plant-worm; and what the plant-worm did not take, has been food

for the field-fly.

1:5 Come out of your sleep, you who are overcome with wine, and

give yourselves to weeping; give cries of sorrow, all you

drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine; for it has been

cut off from your mouths.

1:6 For a nation has come up over my land, strong and without

number; his teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the back

teeth of a great lion.

1:7 By him my vine is made waste and my fig-tree broken: he has

taken all its fruit and sent it down to the earth; its branches

are made white.

1:8 Make sounds of grief like a virgin dressed in haircloth for

the husband of her early years.

1:9 The meal offering and the drink offering have been cut off

from the house of the Lord; the priests, the Lord's servants,

are sorrowing.

1:10 The fields are wasted, the land has become dry; for the

grain is wasted, the new wine is kept back, the oil is poor.

1:11 The farmers are shamed, the workers in the vine-gardens

give cries of grief, for the wheat and the barley; for the

produce of the fields has come to destruction.

1:12 The vine has become dry and the fig-tree is feeble; the

pomegranate and the palm-tree and the apple-tree, even all the

trees of the field, are dry: because joy has gone from the sons

of men.

1:13 Put haircloth round you and give yourselves to sorrow, you

priests; give cries of grief, you servants of the altar: come

in, and, clothed in haircloth, let the night go past, you

servants of my God: for the meal offering and the drink

offering have been kept back from the house of your God.

1:14 Let a time be fixed for going without food, have a holy

meeting, let the old men, even all the people of the land, come

together to the house of the Lord your God, crying out to the

Lord.

1:15 Sorrow for the day! for the day of the Lord is near, and as

destruction from the Ruler of all it will come.

1:16 Is not food cut off before our eyes? joy and delight from

the house of our God?

1:17 The grains have become small and dry under the spade; the

store-houses are made waste, the grain-stores are broken down;

for the grain is dry and dead.

1:18 What sounds of pain come from the beasts! the herds of

cattle are at a loss because there is no grass for them; even

the flocks of sheep are no longer to be seen.

1:19 O Lord, my cry goes up to you: for fire has put an end to

the grass-lands of the waste, and all the trees of the field

are burned with its flame.

1:20 The beasts of the field are turning to you with desire: for

the water-streams are dry and fire has put an end to the

grass-lands of the waste.

2:1 Let the horn be sounded in Zion, and a war-cry in my holy

mountain; let all the people of the land be troubled: for the

day of the Lord is coming;

2:2 For a day of dark and deep shade is near, a day of cloud and

black night: like a black cloud a great and strong people is

covering the mountains; there has never been any like them and

will not be after them again, from generation to generation.

2:3 Before them fire sends destruction, and after them flame is

burning: the land is like the garden of Eden before them, and

after them an unpeopled waste; truly, nothing has been kept

safe from them.

2:4 Their form is like the form of horses, and they are running

like war-horses.

2:5 Like the sound of war-carriages they go jumping on the tops

of the mountains; like the noise of a flame of fire burning up

the grain-stems, like a strong people lined up for the fight.

2:6 At their coming the people are bent with pain: all faces

become red together.

2:7 They are running like strong men, they go over the wall like

men of war; every man goes straight on his way, their lines are

not broken.

2:8 No one is pushing against another; everyone goes straight on

his way: bursting through the sword points, their order is not

broken.

2:9 They make a rush on the town, running on the wall; they go

up into the houses and in through the windows like a thief.

2:10 The earth is troubled before them and the heavens are

shaking: the sun and the moon have become dark, and the stars

keep back their shining:

2:11 And the Lord is thundering before his forces; for very

great is his army; for he is strong who gives effect to his

word: for the day of the Lord is great and greatly to be

feared, and who has strength against it?

2:12 But even now, says the Lord, come back to me with all your

heart, keeping from food, with weeping and with sorrow:

2:13 Let your hearts be broken, and not your clothing, and come

back to the Lord your God: for he is full of grace and pity,

slow to be angry and great in mercy, ready to be turned from

his purpose of punishment.

2:14 May it not be that he will again let his purpose be changed

and let a blessing come after him, even a meal offering and a

drink offering for the Lord your God?

2:15 Let a horn be sounded in Zion, let a time be fixed for

going without food, have a holy meeting:

2:16 Get the people together, make the mass of the people holy,

send for the old men, get together the children and babies at

the breast: let the newly married man come out of his room and

the bride from her tent.

2:17 Let the priests, the servants of the Lord, be weeping

between the covered way and the altar, and let them say, Have

mercy on your people, O Lord, do not give up your heritage to

shame, so that the nations become their rulers: why let them

say among the peoples, Where is their God?

2:18 Then the Lord had a care for the honour of his land and had

pity on his people.

2:19 And the Lord made answer and said to his people, See, I

will send you grain and wine and oil in full measure: and I

will no longer let you be shamed among the nations:

2:20 I will send the one from the north far away from you,

driving him into a dry and waste land, with his front to the

sea of the east and his back to the sea of the west, and the

smell of him will go up, even his evil smell will go up.

2:21 Have no fear, O land; be glad with great joy; for the Lord

has done great things.

2:22 Have no fear, you beasts of the field, for the grass-lands

of the waste are becoming green, for the trees are producing

fruit, the fig-tree and the vine give out their strength.

2:23 Be glad, then, you children of Zion, and have joy in the

Lord your God: for he gives you food in full measure, making

the rain come down for you, the early and the late rain as at

the first.

2:24 And the floors will be full of grain, and the

crushing-places overflowing with wine and oil.

2:25 I will give back to you the years which were food for the

locust, the plant-worm, the field-fly, and the worm, my great

army which I sent among you.

2:26 You will have food in full measure, and give praise to the

name of the Lord your God, who has done wonders for you:

2:27 And you will be certain that I am in Israel, and that I am

the Lord your God, and there is no other: and my people will

never be shamed.

2:28 And after that, it will come about, says the Lord, that I

will send my spirit on all flesh; and your sons and your

daughters will be prophets, your old men will have dreams, your

young men will see visions:

2:29 And on the servants and the servant-girls in those days I

will send my spirit.

2:30 And I will let wonders be seen in the heavens and on the

earth, blood and fire and pillars of smoke.

2:31 The sun will be made dark and the moon turned to blood,

before the great day of the Lord comes, a day to be feared.

2:32 And it will be that whoever makes his prayer to the name of

the Lord will be kept safe: for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem

some will be kept safe, as the Lord has said, and will be among

the small band marked out by the Lord.

3:1 For in those days and in that time, when I let the fate of

Judah and Jerusalem be changed,

3:2 I will get together all the nations, and make them come down

into the valley of Jehoshaphat; and there I will take up with

them the cause of my people and of my heritage Israel, whom

they have sent wandering among the nations, and of my land

which has been parted by them.

3:3 And they have put the fate of my people to the decision of

chance: giving a boy for the price of a loose woman and a girl

for a drink of wine.

3:4 And further, what are you to me, O Tyre and Zidon and all

the circle of Philistia? will you give me back any payment? and

if you do, quickly and suddenly I will send it back on your

head,

3:5 For you have taken my silver and my gold, putting in the

houses of your gods my beautiful and pleasing things.

3:6 And the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem you

have given for a price to the sons of the Greeks, to send them

far away from their land:

3:7 See, I will have them moved from the place where you have

sent them, and will let what you have done come back on your

head;

3:8 I will give your sons and your daughters into the hands of

the children of Judah for a price, and they will give them for

a price to the men of Sheba, a nation far off: for the Lord has

said it.

3:9 Give this out among the nations; make ready for war: get the

strong men awake; let all the men of war come near, let them

come up.

3:10 Get your plough-blades hammered into swords, and your

vine-knives into spears: let the feeble say, I am strong.

3:11 Come quickly, all you nations round about, and get

yourselves together there: make your strong ones come down, O

Lord.

3:12 Let the nations be awake, and come to the valley of

Jehoshaphat: for there I will be seated as judge of all the

nations round about.

3:13 Put in the blade, for the grain is ready: come, get you

down, for the wine-crusher is full, the vessels are

overflowing; for great is their evil-doing.

3:14 Masses on masses in the valley of decision! for the day of

the Lord is near in the valley of decision.

3:15 The sun and the moon have become dark, and the stars keep

back their shining.

3:16 And the Lord will be thundering from Zion, and his voice

will be sounding from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth

will be shaking: but the Lord will be a breastplate for his

people and a strong place for the children of Israel.

3:17 And you will be certain that I am the Lord your God, living

in Zion, my holy mountain: and Jerusalem will be holy, and no

strange person will ever again go through her.

3:18 And it will come about in that day that the mountains will

be dropping sweet wine, and the hills will be flowing with

milk, and all the streams of Judah will be flowing with water;

and a fountain will come out from the house of the Lord,

watering the valley of acacia-trees.

3:19 Egypt will be a waste and Edom a land of destruction,

because of the evil done to the children of Judah, because they

have let blood be drained out in their land without cause.

3:20 But Judah will be peopled for ever, and Jerusalem from

generation to generation.

3:21 And I will send punishment for their blood, for which

punishment has not been sent, for the Lord is living in Zion.