Joel 3:1-21
3 “For, look! in those days and in that time,+ when I shall bring back the captive ones of Judah and Jerusalem,+
2 I will also collect together all the nations+ and bring them down to the low plain of Je·hoshʹa·phat;+ and I will put myself on judgment with them there on account of my people and my inheritance Israel,+ whom they scattered among the nations; and they apportioned out my own land.+
3 And for my people they kept casting lots;+ and they would give the male child for a prostitute,*+ and the female child they sold for wine, that they might drink.
4 “And, also, what do YOU have to do with me,* O Tyre and Siʹdon+ and all YOU regions of Phi·lisʹti·a?+ Is it the treatment that YOU are giving me as a reward? And if YOU are giving such treatment to me, swiftly, speedily I shall pay back YOUR treatment upon YOUR heads.+
5 Because YOU men have taken my own silver and my own gold,+ and YOU have brought my own desirable good things into YOUR temples;+
6 and the sons of Judah and the sons of Jerusalem YOU have sold+ to the sons of the Greeks,*+ for the purpose of removing them far from their own territory;+
7 here I am arousing them [to come] from the place where YOU have sold them,+ and I will pay back YOUR treatment upon YOUR own heads.+
8 And I will sell YOUR sons and YOUR daughters into the hand of the sons of Judah,+ and they must sell them to the men of Sheʹba,+ to a nation far away;+ for Jehovah himself has spoken [it].
9 “Proclaim this, YOU people, among the nations,+ ‘Sanctify war! Arouse the powerful men!*+ Let them draw near! Let them come up, all the men* of war!+
10 Beat YOUR plowshares into swords and YOUR pruning shears+ into lances. As for the weak one, let him say: “I am a powerful man.”+
11 Lend YOUR aid and come, all YOU nations round about,+ and collect yourselves together.’”+
To that place, O Jehovah, bring your powerful ones down.+
12 “Let the nations be aroused and come up to the low plain of Je·hoshʹa·phat;+ for there I shall sit in order to judge all the nations round about.+
13 “THRUST in a sickle,+ for harvest has grown ripe.+ Come, descend, for [the] winepress has become full.+ The press vats actually overflow; for their badness has become abundant.+
14 Crowds, crowds are in the low plain of the decision,+ for the day of Jehovah is near in the low plain of the decision.+
15 Sun and moon themselves will certainly become dark, and the very stars will actually withdraw their brightness.+
16 And out of Zion Jehovah himself will roar, and out of Jerusalem he will give forth his voice.+ And heaven and earth certainly will rock;+ but Jehovah will be a refuge for his people,+ and a fortress for the sons of Israel.+
17 And YOU people will have to know that I am Jehovah YOUR God,+ residing in Zion my holy mountain.+ And Jerusalem must become a holy place;+ and as regards strangers, they will no more pass through her.+
18 “And it must occur in that day that the mountains will drip with sweet wine,*+ and the very hills will flow* with milk, and the very streambeds of Judah will all flow with water. And out of the house of Jehovah there will go forth a spring,+ and it must irrigate the torrent valley of the Acacia Trees.*+
19 As regards Egypt, a desolate waste it will become;+ and as regards Eʹdom, a wilderness of desolate waste it will become,+ because of the violence to the sons of Judah, in whose land they shed innocent blood.+
20 But as for Judah, to time indefinite it will be inhabited,+ and Jerusalem to generation after generation.+
21 And I will consider innocent their blood* that I had not considered innocent;*+ and Jehovah will be residing in Zion.”+
Footnotes
^ Lit., “for the prostitute.” Heb., baz·zoh·nahʹ; Gr., porʹnais; Lat., in pro·stiʹbu·lum.
^ Lit., “what are you to me?” A Heb. idiom; a repellent question indicating objection to the “treatment.” See App 7B.
^ “The Greeks,” LXXVg; Heb., hai·Yewa·nimʹ, “the Ionians.”
^ “Men of.” Heb., ʼan·shehʹ, pl. of ʼish.
^ Or, “fresh grape juice.”
^ Lit., “go.”
^ Or, “valley of Shittim.”
^ That is, death by bloodshed.
^ “And I will avenge their blood and by no means consider [them] innocent,” LXX; Vg, “And I will cleanse their blood that I had not cleansed.”
