Joel 1:11

For God didn’t give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control.

even as it is written, “Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock of offense; and no one who believes in him will be disappointed.”

Alas for the day! For the day of Yahweh is at hand, and it will come as destruction from the Almighty.

Whoever is wise will pay attention to these things. They will consider the loving kindnesses of Yahweh.

It will happen that like a hunted gazelle, and like sheep that no one gathers, they will each turn to their own people, and will each flee to their own land.

Who is wise, that he may understand these things? Who is prudent, that he may know them? For the ways of Yahweh are right, and the righteous walk in them; But the rebellious stumble in them.

Take away from me the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.

“When a man’s relative carries him, even he who burns him, to bring bodies out of the house, and asks him who is in the innermost parts of the house, ‘Is there yet any with you?’ And he says, ‘No;’ then he will say, ‘Hush! Indeed we must not mention Yahweh’s name.’

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s love, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.

according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I will in no way be disappointed, but with all boldness, as always, now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death.

whom he poured out on us richly, through Jesus Christ our Savior;

According to what I have seen, those who plow iniquity, and sow trouble, reap the same.

For what is the hope of the godless, when he is cut off, when God takes away his life?

Uphold me according to your word, that I may live. Let me not be ashamed of my hope.

For there will be a day of Yahweh of Armies for all that is proud and arrogant, and for all that is lifted up; and it shall be brought low:

Behold, the day of Yahweh comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger; to make the land a desolation, and to destroy its sinners out of it.

In the day of your planting, you hedge it in. In the morning, you make your seed blossom, but the harvest flees away in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.

For Yahweh has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.

Because of the ground which is cracked, because no rain has been in the land, the plowmen are disappointed. They cover their heads.

He made many to stumble. Yes, they fell on one another. They said, ‘Arise! Let’s go again to our own people, and to the land of our birth, from the oppressing sword.’

“We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed. Forsake her, and let’s each go into his own country; for her judgment reaches to heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies.

For they sow the wind, and they will reap the whirlwind. He has no standing grain. The stalk will yield no head. If it does yield, strangers will swallow it up.

Yahweh thunders his voice before his army; for his forces are very great; for he is strong who obeys his command; for the day of Yahweh is great and very awesome, and who can endure it?

“Woe to you who desire the day of Yahweh! Why do you long for the day of Yahweh? It is darkness, and not light.

Be silent at the presence of the Lord Yahweh, for the day of Yahweh is at hand. For Yahweh has prepared a sacrifice. He has consecrated his guests.

Wail, you inhabitants of Maktesh, for all the people of Canaan are undone! All those who were loaded with silver are cut off.

It will be, that whoever of all the families of the earth doesn’t go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, Yahweh of Armies, on them there will be no rain.

But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things, and will remind you of all that I said to you.

For this cause I also suffer these things. Yet I am not ashamed, for I know him whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed to him against that day.

Yahweh will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with fiery heat, with the sword, with blight, and with mildew. They will pursue you until you perish.

and a fruitful land into a salt waste, for the wickedness of those who dwell in it.

Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Your Spirit is good. Lead me in the land of uprightness.

He who trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous shall flourish as the green leaf.

Howl, gate! Cry, city! You are melted away, Philistia, all of you; for smoke comes out of the north, and there is no straggler in his ranks.

They have gone up to Bayith, and to Dibon, to the high places, to weep. Moab wails over Nebo and over Medeba. Baldness is on all of their heads. Every beard is cut off.

Therefore the showers have been withheld and there has been no latter rain; yet you have had a prostitute’s forehead and you refused to be ashamed.

I will weep and wail for the mountains, and lament for the pastures of the wilderness, because they are burned up, so that no one passes through; Men can’t hear the voice of the livestock. Both the birds of the sky and the animals have fled. They are gone.

Who is wise enough to understand this? Who is he to whom the mouth of Yahweh has spoken, that he may declare it? Why has the land perished and burned up like a wilderness, so that no one passes through?

“Now therefore, speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Yahweh says: “Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a plan against you. Everyone return from his evil way now, and amend your ways and your doings.” ’

Cut off the sower from Babylon, and him who handles the sickle in the time of harvest. For fear of the oppressing sword, they will each return to their own people, and they will each flee to their own land.

Babylon has suddenly fallen and been destroyed! Wail for her! Take balm for her pain. Perhaps she may be healed.

The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground. They keep silence. They have cast up dust on their heads. They have clothed themselves with sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.

You have not gone up into the gaps or built up the wall for the house of Israel, to stand in the battle in Yahweh’s day.

Cry and wail, son of man; for it is on my people. It is on all the princes of Israel. They are delivered over to the sword with my people. Therefore beat your thigh.

“Son of man, prophesy, and say, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Wail, ‘Alas for the day!’

Therefore the land will mourn, and everyone who dwells in it will waste away, with all living things in her, even the animals of the field and the birds of the sky, yes, the fish of the sea also die.

The field is laid waste. The land mourns, for the grain is destroyed, The new wine has dried up, and the oil languishes.

The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of Yahweh comes.

I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will make you wear sackcloth on all your bodies, and baldness on every head. I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and its end like a bitter day.

The great day of Yahweh is near. It is near, and hurries greatly, the voice of the day of Yahweh. The mighty man cries there bitterly.

Behold, a day of Yahweh comes, when your plunder will be divided within you.

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of Yahweh comes.

Being therefore exalted by the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this, which you now see and hear.

So the assemblies throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace, and were built up. They were multiplied, walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.

Besides hope, Abraham in hope believed, to the end that he might become a father of many nations, according to that which had been spoken, “So will your offspring be.”

Not only so, but ourselves also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for adoption, the redemption of our body.

And because you are children, God sent out the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!”

that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, to the end that you, being rooted and grounded in love,

who also declared to us your love in the Spirit.

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow let’s go into this city, and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit.”

We love him, because he first loved us.

standing far away for the fear of her torment, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For your judgment has come in one hour.’

There was no bread in all the land; for the famine was very severe, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan fainted by reason of the famine.

But Yahweh your God will deliver them up before you, and will confuse them with a great confusion, until they are destroyed.

that all of its land is sulfur, salt, and burning, that it is not sown, doesn’t produce, nor does any grass grow in it, like the overthrow of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which Yahweh overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath.

“If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence, if there is blight or mildew, locust or caterpillar; if their enemies besiege them in the land of their cities; whatever plague or whatever sickness there is;

Wail, for Yahweh’s day is at hand! It will come as destruction from the Almighty.

They are planted scarcely. They are sown scarcely. Their stock has scarcely taken root in the ground. He merely blows on them, and they wither, and the whirlwind takes them away as stubble.

“Now therefore, what do I do here,” says Yahweh, “seeing that my people are taken away for nothing? Those who rule over them mock,” says Yahweh, “and my name is blasphemed continually all day long.

Destruction on destruction is decreed, for the whole land is laid waste. Suddenly my tents are destroyed, and my curtains gone in a moment.

For that day is of the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge himself of his adversaries. The sword will devour and be satiated, and will drink its fill of their blood; for the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, has a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates.

“Wail, Heshbon, for Ai is laid waste! Cry, you daughters of Rabbah! Clothe yourself in sackcloth. Lament, and run back and forth among the fences; for Malcam will go into captivity, his priests and his princes together.

Don’t rejoice, Israel, to jubilation like the nations; for you were unfaithful to your God. You love the wages of a prostitute at every grain threshing floor.

Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.

The seeds rot under their clods. The granaries are laid desolate. The barns are broken down, for the grain has withered.

I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the great locust, the grasshopper, and the caterpillar, my great army, which I sent among you.

Therefore Yahweh, the God of Armies, the Lord, says: “Wailing will be in all the wide ways; and they will say in all the streets, ‘Alas! Alas!’ and they will call the farmer to mourning, and those who are skillful in lamentation to wailing.

The songs of the temple will be wailing in that day,” says the Lord Yahweh. “The dead bodies will be many. In every place they will throw them out with silence.

and hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming on you.