Joel 3

The AIT Bible

Judgment Against the Nations

1For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem,

2I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and I will enter into judgment with them there over my people and my inheritance Israel, whom they scattered among the nations; and they divided up my land.

3And for my people they cast lots; they gave a boy for a prostitute, and sold a girl for wine, and drank it.

4And what are you to me, O Tyre and Sidon, and all the regions of Philistia? Are you paying me back a recompense? If you are recompensing me, swiftly and speedily I will return your recompense on your own head.

5Because you took my silver and my gold, and carried my finest treasures into your temples,

6and you sold the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem to the sons of the Greeks, in order to remove them far from their own territory—

7behold, I am rousing them from the place where you sold them, and I will return your recompense on your own head.

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

The Nations Gathered for Judgment

9Proclaim this among the nations: Consecrate for war! Rouse the warriors! Let all the men of war draw near and come up!

10Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weakling say, ‘I am a warrior.’

11Hurry and come, all you nations from all around, and gather yourselves there. Bring down your warriors, O Yahweh!

12Let the nations rouse themselves and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, for there I will sit to judge all the nations from all around.

13Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, tread, for the winepress is full; the vats overflow, for their evil is great.

14Multitudes, multitudes in the Valley of Decision! For the day of Yahweh is near in the Valley of Decision.

15Sun and moon grow dark, and the stars withdraw their shining.

16And Yahweh roars from Zion, and from Jerusalem he gives his voice, and the heavens and the earth quake; but Yahweh is a refuge for his people and a stronghold for the children of Israel.

17Then you will know that I am Yahweh your God, dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain; and Jerusalem will be holy, and strangers will pass through it no more.

The Future Blessing of Judah

18And on that day it will come to pass that the mountains will drip sweet wine, and the hills will flow with milk, and all the streambeds of Judah will flow with water; and a spring will go out from the house of Yahweh and water the Valley of Shittim.

19Egypt will become a desolation, and Edom will become a desolate wilderness, because of the violence done to the children of Judah, in whose land they shed innocent blood.

20But Judah will be inhabited forever, and Jerusalem for generation after generation.

21And I will acquit their bloodshed that I had not acquitted; and Yahweh dwells in Zion.

Open in the interactive reader →