The Book of the Prophet Joel 3 God's Judgments on Enemy Nations: Israel Will Be Restored

 The Book of the Prophet Joel 3

God's Judgments on Enemy Nations: Israel Will Be Restored

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

2 I will gather all nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. There I will put them on trial for what they did to my people, my inheritance, Israel, because they scattered my people among the nations and divided up my land.

3 They cast lots for my people; they traded a boy for a prostitute and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink.

4 And what have you to do with me, Tyre and Sidon and all the borders of Phoenicia? Is this the kind of payment you give me? If you pay me this way, I will quickly repay you.

5 Because you have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried away my precious and beautiful things into your temples;

6 And you have sold the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem to the sons of the Greeks, to remove them far from their borders;

7 Behold, I will remove them from the place where you sold them, and I will cause your recompense to fall upon your own head.

8 And I will sell your sons and your daughters by the hand of the children of Judah, who shall sell them to the sons of Sheba, to a distant nation, for the Lord has spoken.

9 Proclaim this among the nations: Consecrate war; rouse the mighty men; let all the men of war draw near, let them come up.

10 Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, “I am strong.”

11 Assemble yourselves, and come, all you nations round about, and gather yourselves together (O Lord, bring down your mighty ones there!);

12 Let the nations be roused, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat; for there I will sit to judge all the nations round about.

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

14 Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.

15 The sun and the moon shall be great, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.

16 Then the Lord shall roar from Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; the heavens and the earth shall tremble. But the Lord shall be a refuge for his people, a stronghold for the children of Israel. 

17 And you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who dwells in Zion, my holy mountain; strangers shall no more pass through it.

18 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drip with sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall be full of waters; and a fountain shall come forth out of the house of the Lord, and shall water the valley of Shittim.

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

20 But Judah shall be inhabited forever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation.

21 And I will cleanse the blood of them whom I had not cleansed: for the Lord shall dwell in Zion.