Book of Joel
א דְּבַר-יְהוָה אֲשֶׁר הָיָה, אֶל-יוֹאֵל בֶּן-פְּתוּאֵל.
Joel, whose name, according to St. Jerome, signifies The Lord God -- or, as others say, The Coming Down of God -- prophesied about the same time in the kingdom of Judea, as Hosea did in the kingdom of Israel. He foretells under figure the great evils that were coming upon the people for their sins: earnestly exhorts them to repentance: and comforts them with the promise of a Teacher of Justice, viz., Christ Jesus Our Lord, and of the coming down of his Holy Spirit. (For more information, see the article JOEL in the Catholic Encyclopedia.)[1]
Chapter .1
[1] The word of the LORD that came to Joel, the son of Pethu'el: [2] Hear this, you aged men, give ear, all inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers? [3] Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. [4] What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten. [5] Awake, you drunkards, and weep; and wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth. [6] For a nation has come up against my land, powerful and without number; its teeth are lions' teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness. [7] It has laid waste my vines, and splintered my fig trees; it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down; their branches are made white. [8] Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the bridegroom of her youth. [9] The cereal offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of the LORD. The priests mourn, the ministers of the LORD. [10] The fields are laid waste, the ground mourns; because the grain is destroyed, the wine fails, the oil languishes. [11] Be confounded, O tillers of the soil, wail, O vinedressers, for the wheat and the barley; because the harvest of the field has perished. [12] The vine withers, the fig tree languishes. Pomegranate, palm, and apple, all the trees of the field are withered; and gladness fails from the sons of men. [13] Gird on sackcloth and lament, O priests, wail, O ministers of the altar. Go in, pass the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my God! Because cereal offering and drink offering are withheld from the house of your God. [14] Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of the LORD your God; and cry to the LORD. [15] Alas for the day! For the day of the LORD is near, and as destruction from the Almighty it comes. [16] Is not the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God? [17] The seed shrivels under the clods, the storehouses are desolate; the granaries are ruined because the grain has failed. [18] How the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are perplexed because there is no pasture for them; even the flocks of sheep are dismayed. [19] Unto thee, O LORD, I cry. For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and flame has burned all the trees of the field. [20] Even the wild beasts cry to thee because the water brooks are dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.
Chapter .2
[1]
Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming, it is near, [2] a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains a great and powerful people; their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them through the years of all generations. [3] Fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns. The land is like the garden of Eden before them, but after them a desolate wilderness, and nothing escapes them. [4] Their appearance is like the appearance of horses, and like war horses they run. [5] As with the rumbling of chariots, they leap on the tops of the mountains, like the crackling of a flame of fire devouring the stubble, like a powerful army drawn up for battle. [6] Before them peoples are in anguish, all faces grow pale. [7] Like warriors they charge, like soldiers they scale the wall. They march each on his way, they do not swerve from their paths. [8] They do not jostle one another, each marches in his path; they burst through the weapons and are not halted. [9] They leap upon the city, they run upon the walls; they climb up into the houses, they enter through the windows like a thief. [10] The earth quakes before them, the heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. [11] The LORD utters his voice before his army, for his host is exceedingly great; he that executes his word is powerful. For the day of the LORD is great and very terrible; who can endure it? [12] "Yet even now," says the LORD, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; [13] and rend your hearts and not your garments." Return to the LORD, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and repents of evil. [14] Who knows whether he will not turn and repent, and leave a blessing behind him, a cereal offering and a drink offering for the LORD, your God? [15] Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly; [16] gather the people. Sanctify the congregation; assemble the elders; gather the children, even nursing infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber. [17] Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep and say, "Spare thy people, O LORD, and make not thy heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, `Where is their God?'" [18] Then the LORD became jealous for his land, and had pity on his people. [19] The LORD answered and said to his people, "Behold, I am sending to you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations. [20] "I will remove the northerner far from you, and drive him into a parched and desolate land, his front into the eastern sea, and his rear into the western sea; the stench and foul smell of him will rise, for he has done great things. [21] "Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice, for the LORD has done great things! [22] Fear not, you beasts of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green; the tree bears its fruit, the fig tree and vine give their full yield. [23] "Be glad, O sons of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD, your God; for he has given the early rain for your vindication, he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the latter rain, as before. [24] "The threshing floors shall be full of grain, the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. [25] I will restore to you the years which the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you. [26] "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 again be put to shame. [27] You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I, the LORD, am your God and there is none else. And my people shall never again be put to shame. [28] "And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. [29] Even upon the menservants and maidservants in those days, I will pour out my spirit. [30]
"And I will give portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke.
[31] The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes. [32] And it shall come to pass that all who call upon the name of the LORD shall be delivered; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the LORD calls.
Chapter .3
[1]
"For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem,
[2] I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the valley of Jehosh'aphat, and I will enter into judgment with them there, on account of my people and my heritage Israel, because they have scattered them among the nations, and have divided up my land, [3] and have cast lots for my people, and have given a boy for a harlot, and have sold a girl for wine, and have drunk it. [4]
"What are you to me, O Tyre and Sidon, and all the regions of Philistia? Are you paying me back for something? If you are paying me back, I will requite your deed upon your own head swiftly and speedily.
[5] For you have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried my rich treasures into your temples. [6] You have sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks, removing them far from their own border. [7] But now I will stir them up from the place to which you have sold them, and I will requite your deed upon your own head. [8] I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the sons of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabe'ans, to a nation far off; for the LORD has spoken." [9] Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare war, stir up 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 a warrior." [11] Hasten and come, all you nations round about, gather yourselves there. Bring down thy warriors, O LORD. [12] Let the nations bestir themselves, and come up to the valley of Jehosh'aphat; for there I will sit to judge all the nations round about. [13] Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Go in, tread, for the wine press 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 are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. [16] And the LORD roars from Zion, and utters his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth shake. But the LORD is a refuge to his people, a stronghold to the people of Israel. [17] "So you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who dwell in Zion, my holy mountain. And Jerusalem shall be holy and strangers shall never again pass through it. [18] "And in that day the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the stream beds of Judah shall flow with water; and a fountain shall come forth from the house of the LORD and water the valley of Shittim. [19] "Egypt shall become a desolation and Edom a desolate wilderness, for the violence done to the people of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land. [20] But Judah shall be inhabited for ever, and Jerusalem to all generations. [21] I will avenge their blood, and I will not clear the guilty, for the LORD dwells in Zion."
