Chapter 1
1word that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel.
2Hear this, you elders,
3Tell your children about it,
4What the swarming locust has left, the great locust has eaten.
5Wake up, you drunkards, and weep!
6For a nation has come up on my land, strong, and without number.
7He has laid my vine waste,
8Mourn like a virgin dressed in sackcloth
9The meal offering and the drink offering are cut off from Yahweh’s house.
10The field is laid waste.
11Be confounded, you farmers!
12The vine has dried up, and the fig tree withered—
13Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests!
14Sanctify a fast.
15Alas for the day!
16Isn’t the food cut off before our eyes,
17The seeds rot under their clods.
18How the animals groan!
19Yahweh, I cry to you,
20Yes, the animals of the field pant to you,
Chapter 2
1Blow the trumpet in Zion,
2A day of darkness and gloominess,
3A fire devours before them,
4Their appearance is as the appearance of horses,
5Like the noise of chariots on the tops of the mountains, they leap,
6At their presence the peoples are in anguish.
7They run like mighty men.
8One doesn’t jostle another.
9They rush on the city.
10The earth quakes before them.
11Yahweh thunders his voice before his army,
12“Yet even now,” says Yahweh, “turn to me with all your heart,
13Tear your heart and not your garments,
14Who knows? He may turn and relent,
15Blow the trumpet in Zion!
16Gather the people.
17Let the priests, the ministers of Yahweh, weep between the porch and the altar,
18Then Yahweh was jealous for his land,
19Yahweh answered his people,
20But I will remove the northern army far away from you,
21Land, don’t be afraid.
22Don’t be afraid, you animals of the field;
23“Be glad then, you children of Zion,
24The threshing floors will be full of wheat,
25I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten,
26You will have plenty to eat and be satisfied,
27You will know that I am among Israel,
28“It will happen afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;
29And also on the servants and on the handmaids in those days,
30I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth:
31The sun will be turned into darkness,
32It will happen that whoever will call on Yahweh’s name shall be saved;
Chapter 3
1“For, behold, in those days,
2I will gather all nations,
3and have cast lots for my people,
4“Yes, and what are you to me, Tyre and Sidon,
5Because you have taken my silver and my gold,
6and have sold the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem to the sons of the Greeks,
7Behold, I will stir them up out of the place where you have sold them,
8and I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hands of the children of Judah,
9Proclaim this among the nations:
10Beat your plowshares into swords,
11Hurry and come, all you surrounding nations,
12“Let the nations arouse themselves,
13Put in the sickle;
14Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision!
15The sun and the moon are darkened,
16Yahweh will roar from Zion,
17“So you will know that I am Yahweh, your God,
18It will happen in that day,
19Egypt will be a desolation
20But Judah will be inhabited forever,
21I will cleanse their blood