meta: {"file": "/data/tomer/Sefaria-Export/txt/Tanakh/Prophets/Joel/English/The Koren Jerusalem Bible.txt"}
text: Joel
  יואל
  The Koren Jerusalem Bible
  
  
  Joel
  
  
  
  
  
  The word of the Lord that came to Yo᾽el the son of Petu᾽el.
  Hear this, you old men, and give ear, all you inhabitants of the land. Has such a thing been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?
  Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.
  That which the cutting locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; and that which the swarming locust has left, the hopping locust has eaten; and that which the hopping locust has left, the destroying locust has eaten.
  Awake, drunkards, and weep; and howl, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.
  For a nation is come up upon my land, mighty, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the fangs of a lioness.
  He has laid my vine waste, and splintered my fig tree: he has made it clean bare, and cast it down; its branches are made white.
  Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.
  The meal offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the Lord; the priests, the Lord’s ministers, mourn.
  The field is wasted, the land mourns; for the corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languishes.
  Be ashamed, O you farmers; wail, O you vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished.
  The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languishes; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, all the trees of the field, are withered because joy is withered away from the sons of men.
  Gird yourselves, and lament, you priests: wail, you ministers of the altar: come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God: for the meal offering and the drink offering is withheld from the house of your 
  					God.
  Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the Lord your God, and cry to the 
  					Lord.
  Alas for the day! for the day of the Lord is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.
  Is not the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God?
  The seed shrivels under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered.
  How do the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.
  O Lord, to thee do I cry: for the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame has burned all the trees of the field.
  Even beasts of the field cry to Thee: for the water courses are dried up, and the fire has devoured the pastures of the 
  				wilderness.
  
  
  
  Blow the shofar in Żiyyon, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord comes, for it is near at hand;
  a day of darkness and of gloom, a day of clouds and of thick darkness. Like twilight spread over the mountains, a great people and a mighty; there has not been ever the like, nor shall there be any more such after them, to the years of many generations.
  A fire devours before them; and behind them blazes a flame: the land is like the garden of ῾Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; and nothing escapes them.
  The appearance of them is like the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so do they run.
  Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains they leap; like the noise of a flame of fire that devours the stubble, like a strong people set in battle array.
  At their presence the peoples are in anguish: all faces are covered with blackness.
  They run like mighty men; they climb the wall like men of war; and they march everyone on his ways; and they do not break their ranks:
  nor does one thrust another; they walk everyone in his path: and they burst through the weapons; they are not wounded.
  They run to and fro in the city; they run upon the wall, they climb up into the houses; they enter in at the windows like a thief.
  The earth quakes before them; the heavens tremble: the sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining:
  and the Lord utters his voice before his army: for his camp is very great: for 
  					he who executes his word is strong: for the day of the Lord is great and very terrible; and who can abide it?
  Yet even now, says the Lord, turn to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning:
  and rend your hearts, and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and great in love, and repents of evil.
  Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him; a meal offering and a drink offering for the 
  					Lord your God?
  Blow the shofar in Żiyyon, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly:
  gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those who suck the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth from his chamber, and the bride out of her pavilion.
  Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O Lord, and give not Thy heritage to reproach, that the nations should rule over them: why should they say among the peoples, Where is their 
  					God?
  Then the Lord was zealous for his land, and pitied his people.
  And the Lord answered and said to his people, Behold, I will send you corn, and wine, and oil, and you shall be satisfied therewith: and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations:
  but I will remove far off from you the northern one, and will drive him into a barren and desolate land, with his face towards the eastern sea, and his hinder part toward the western sea, and his foulness shall come up, and his ill savour shall ascend, though he has done great things.
  Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice: for the Lord will do greater things.
  Be not afraid, O beasts of the field: for the pastures of the wilderness shall spring, for the tree bears its fruit, the fig tree and the vine do yield their strength.
  Be glad then, you children of Żiyyon, and rejoice in the Lord your God: for he has given you the former rain in due measure, and 
  					he has brought down for you the rain in the first month, the former rain, and the latter rain.
  And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.
  And I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten, the hopping locust, and the destroying locust, and the cutting locust, my great army which I sent among you.
  And you shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you: and 
  					my people shall never be ashamed.
  And you shall know that I am in the midst of Yisra᾽el, and that I am the Lord your God, and there it is none else: and 
  					my people shall never be ashamed.
  
  
  
  And it shall come to pass afterwards, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:
  and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.
  And I will exhibit wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
  The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and the terrible day of the Lord.
  And it shall come to pass, that whoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered: for in mount Żiyyon and in Yerushalayim there shall be those that escape, as the Lord has said, and among the remnant those whom the 
  					Lord shall call.
  
  
  
  For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring back the captivity of Yehuda and Yerushalayim,
  I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Yehoshafat, and will enter into judgment with them there for my people and for 
  					my heritage Yisra᾽el, whom they have scattered among the nations, and have divided up my land.
  And they have cast lots for my people; and have given a boy for a harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink.
  Moreover, what are you to me, O Żor and Żidon, and all the provinces of Peleshet? will you render retribution on my behalf? and if you render retribution on my behalf, swiftly and speedily will I return your retribution upon your own head.
  Because you have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my goodly treasures:
  the children also of Yehuda and the children of Yerushalayim have you sold to the children of the Yevanim that you might remove them far from their border.
  Behold, I will raise them out of the place to which you have sold them, and will return your retribution upon your own head:
  and I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Yehuda, and they shall sell them to the Shevayim, to a people far off: for the Lord has spoken it.
  Proclaim this among the nations; Prepare war, stir up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up:
  beat your ploughshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.
  Hasten, and come, all you nations, and gather yourselves together round about: cause Thy mighty ones to come down there, O Lord.
  Let the nations be stirred up, and come up to the valley of Yehoshafat: for there will I sit to judge all the nations round about.
  Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, tread down; for the press is full, the vats overflow; for their wickedness is great.
  Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.
  The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining.
  And the Lord roars out of Żiyyon, and utters his voice from Yerushalayim; and the heavens and the earth shake: but the Lord will be a shelter for 
  					his people, and a stronghold for the children of Yisra᾽el.
  So shall you know that I am the Lord your God dwelling in Żiyyon, my holy mountain: then shall Yerushalayim be holy, and no strangers shall pass through her any more.
  And it shall come to pass on that day, that the mountains shall drop down sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the water courses of Yehuda shall flow with water, and a fountain shall issue from the house of the 
  					Lord, and shall water the valley of Shittim.
  Miżrayim shall be a desolation, and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness, for the violence done to the children of Yehuda, because they have shed innocent blood in their land.
  But Yehuda shall remain for ever, and Yerushalayim from generation to generation.
  And though I have acquitted them, those who shed their blood I have not acquitted; and the Lord will dwell in Żiyyon.