Joel 2:1-32
2 Blow a ram-horn in Sion and sound an alarm on my sacred mountain; let all the inhabitants of the country quake, because Jehovah’s day is coming, it is almost here,
2 * a day of darkness and gloom, a day of cloud and thick air. Over the mountains is spread like a daybreak a great and numerous people whose like has not come since the beginning of time nor will again be for generation after generation.
3 Before them a fire has eaten and behind them a flame blazes; the country is like the garden of ʽEden before them and is a desolate wilderness behind them, and there is not a thing that has escaped them.
4 * Their looks are as if they were ponies, and just like horses they run;
5 with a sound as if of chariots they dance on the mountaintops, with a sound as if of a flame of fire eating up stubble, like a numerous soldiery drawn up for battle.
6 Before them peoples are unmanned, all faces are contorted.
7 * They run like warriors, go up a wall like soldiers; and each goes along his own course, they do not borrow each other’s paths,
8 nor jostle each other, they go each along his own street; and they throw themselves in among the weapons without breaking their march.
9 They invade the city; they run on the wall, get up into the houses, get in through the windows like a thief.
10 Before them earth shook, sky quaked, sun and moon went dark and stars withheld their radiance,
11 and Jehovah made his voice heard before his troops, for very large is his army, numerous are they that carry out his will. For great is Jehovah’s day, and very terrible, and who will hold out through it?
12 But even now, quoth Jehovah, come back to me with all your hearts and with fasting and weeping and wailing,
13 and tear your hearts and not your clothes and turn back to your God Jehovah, because he is kindly and tenderhearted, patient and very friendly, and repents of evil.
14 Who knows but he will turn back and repent and leave a blessing remaining behind him, a grain-offering and libation for our God Jehovah?
15 Sound a ram-horn in Sion, ordain a fast, proclaim a holiday; bring people together, ordain an assembly,
16 gather old men, bring together children from play and babies at the breasts; let bridegroom come out from his chamber, bride from her bower; let the priests, the servitors of Jehovah,
17 weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say “Spare your people, Jehovah, and do not give your estate to be taunted and to be ruled by heathen nations; why should they say among the peoples ‘Where is their God?’”
18 And Jehovah was jealous for his country and had mercy on his people;
19 and Jehovah answered his people “Here, I am sending you the grain and the grape-juice and the oil, and you shall have your fill of them, and I will not give you to be taunted again among the nations.
20 * And I will take the northerner off you far away, and banish him to a country of drought and desolation, his face to the eastern sea and his hinder end to the western sea, for his stench to come up, because he has done great things.
21 * Do not be afraid, soil; jubilate and make merry, because Jehovah has done great things.
22 Do not be afraid, beasts on the range, for wilderness pastures have come out, for trees have borne their fruit, fig-trees and grapevines have yielded their wealth,
23 * and the sons of Sion will jubilate and make merry in your God Jehovah because he has given you refreshment fairly and sent down showers for you, autumn rain and spring rain as he had at first,
24 and the threshing-floors will be full of grain and the presses brimming with grape-juice and oil;
25 and I will make good to you the years that the spring and summer and fall and early grasshoppers ate, my great corps that I sent among you;
26 and you shall eat your fill on and on, and praise the name of your God Jehovah who has worked with you in extraordinary fashion; and my people shall not be put to shame forever,
27 and you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and I Jehovah am your God and there is no other, and my people shall not be put to shame forever.
28 And after this I will pour out my spirit on all mortals and your sons and daughters will be under the power, your old men will have dreams and your young men visions,
29 and on the very slaves I will pour out my spirit in those days;
30 and I will give prodigies in the sky and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke;
31 the sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of Jehovah’s great and terrible day.
32 And everyone who calls on Jehovah’s name will come off safe; for on Mount Sion and in Jerusalem there will be escape, as Jehovah has said, and among the survivors whom Jehovah calls.
Footnotes
^ 2:2 Lit. whose like there has not been from age nor
^ 2:4 Lit. are like ponies’ looks
^ 2:7 (borrow) Unc.; conj. do not twist their paths
^ 2:20 Lit. his face to the front sea and his hinder end to the back sea
^ 2:21 Conj. that because he has done great things does not belong here
^ 2:23 (given you refreshment fairly) Susp.; unc.
