Joel 3

1 “Look, in those days and at that time, when I bring back the captives of Judah and Jerusalem,

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

3 and cast lots for my people. They gave boys to prostitutes, sold girls for wine, and drank.

4 What are you to me, Tyre, Sidon, and all Galilee of the Philistines? Are you repaying me for something, or do you bear resentment against me? Swiftly and quickly I will return your repayment on your own heads,

5 because you took my silver and gold and carried my choice and beautiful things into your temples.

6 You sold the children of Judah and Jerusalem to the children of the Greeks to drive them from their own borders.

7 Look, I will raise them up from the place where you sold them, and I will return your repayment on your own heads.

8 I will sell your sons and daughters into the hands of the children of Judah. They will sell them into captivity to a distant nation, because the Lord has spoken.”

9 Proclaim these things among the nations. Make war holy; awaken the fighters. Draw near and go up, all you warriors.

10 Beat your plows into swords and your sickles into spears. Let the weak person say, “I am strong.”

11 Gather and enter, all you surrounding nations; gather there. Let the gentle person become a fighter.

12 “Let all the nations awaken and go up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, because there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations.

13 Send out the sickles, because the grape harvest has come. Go in and tread, because the winepress is full. The vats overflow, because their evil deeds have multiplied.”

14 Sounds echo through the valley of judgment, because the day of the Lord is near in the valley of judgment.

15 The sun and moon grow dark, and the stars withdraw their light.

16 The Lord will cry out from Zion and give his voice from Jerusalem. Heaven and earth will shake, but the Lord will spare his people and strengthen the children of Israel.

17 “You will know that I am the Lord your God, who dwells in Zion, my holy mountain. Jerusalem will be a holy city, and outsiders will never pass through her again.”

18 On that day the mountains will drip sweetness, the hills will flow with milk, and all Judah’s streams will flow with water. A spring will come out from the Lord’s house and water the valley of reeds.

19 Egypt will become a wasteland, and Edom a plain of destruction, because of wrongdoing against the children of Judah, because they shed righteous blood in Judah’s land.

20 But Judah will be inhabited forever, and Jerusalem for generations upon generations.

21 “I will avenge their blood and will certainly not leave it unpunished.”

And the Lord will dwell in Zion.