Joel 1:6

“I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph, and I will bring them back; for I have mercy on them; and they will be as though I had not cast them off: for I am Yahweh their God, and I will hear them.

My soul is among lions. I lie among those who are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.

for then there will be great suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, nor ever will be.

Yahweh said, “Even thus will the children of Israel eat their bread unclean, among the nations where I will drive them.”

As for the sacrifices of my offerings, they sacrifice meat and eat it; But Yahweh doesn’t accept them. Now he will remember their iniquity, and punish their sins. They will return to Egypt.

Arise, Yahweh! Save me, my God! For you have struck all of my enemies on the cheek bone. You have broken the teeth of the wicked.

Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and don’t call on Yahweh?

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin will conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

What the swarming locust has left, the great locust has eaten. What the great locust has left, the grasshopper has eaten. What the grasshopper has left, the caterpillar has eaten.

Therefore Yahweh says: ‘Your wife shall be a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be divided by line; and you yourself shall die in a land that is unclean, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of his land.’ ”

He opened the pit of the abyss, and smoke went up out of the pit, like the smoke from a burning furnace. The sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke from the pit.

Lot lifted up his eyes, and saw all the plain of the Jordan, that it was well-watered everywhere, before Yahweh destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, like the garden of Yahweh, like the land of Egypt, as you go to Zoar.

All these joined together in the valley of Siddim (also called the Salt Sea).

“ ‘The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; for you are strangers and live as foreigners with me.

Yahweh will bring you into Egypt again with ships, by the way of which I told to you that you would never see it again. There you will offer yourselves to your enemies for male and female slaves, and nobody will buy you.

I broke the jaws of the unrighteous and plucked the prey out of his teeth.

God sets the lonely in families. He brings out the prisoners with singing, but the rebellious dwell in a sun-scorched land.

For Yahweh says concerning the house of the king of Judah: “You are Gilead to me, the head of Lebanon. Yet surely I will make you a wilderness, cities which are not inhabited.

For the land is full of adulterers; for because of the curse the land mourns. The pastures of the wilderness have dried up. Their course is evil, and their might is not right;

For Yahweh says: “Behold, he will fly as an eagle, and will spread out his wings against Moab.

They return, but not to the Most High. They are like a faulty bow. Their princes will fall by the sword for the rage of their tongue. This will be their derision in the land of Egypt.

Hear this, you elders, And listen, all you inhabitants of the land. Has this ever happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers?

A day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness. As the dawn spreading on the mountains, a great and strong people; there has never been the like, neither will there be any more after them, even to the years of many generations.

That day is a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness,

They had hair like women’s hair, and their teeth were like those of lions.

I, even I, will bring the flood of waters on this earth, to destroy all flesh having the breath of life from under the sky. Everything that is in the earth will die.

He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew on the ground.

whose home I have made the wilderness, and the salt land his dwelling place?

Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.

You that are full of shouting, a tumultuous city, a joyous town; your slain are not slain with the sword, neither are they dead in battle.

His breath is as an overflowing stream that reaches even to the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction. A bridle that leads to ruin will be in the jaws of the peoples.

I brought you into a plentiful land to eat its fruit and its goodness; but when you entered, you defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination.

I saw, and behold, the fruitful field was a wilderness, and all its cities were broken down at the presence of Yahweh, before his fierce anger.

How long will the land mourn, and the herbs of the whole country wither? Because of the wickedness of those who dwell therein, the animals and birds are consumed; because they said, “He won’t see our latter end.”

We have given our hands to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.

When I extinguish you, I will cover the heavens and make its stars dark. I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon won’t give its light.

You will ascend. You will come like a storm. You will be like a cloud to cover the land, you, and all your hordes, and many peoples with you.”

The high places also of Aven, the sin of Israel, will be destroyed. The thorn and the thistle will come up on their altars. They will tell the mountains, “Cover us!” and the hills, “Fall on us!”

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.

Hear this, you who desire to swallow up the needy, and cause the poor of the land to fail,

Or else, if you refuse to let my people go, behold, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your country,

and they shall cover the surface of the earth, so that one won’t be able to see the earth. They shall eat the residue of that which has escaped, which remains to you from the hail, and shall eat every tree which grows for you out of the field.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from off the land which you go over the Jordan to possess it. You will not prolong your days on it, but will utterly be destroyed.

You will carry much seed out into the field, and will gather little in, for the locust will consume it.

It will happen that as Yahweh rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you, so Yahweh will rejoice over you to cause you to perish and to destroy you. You will be plucked from the land that you are going in to possess.

then I will cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and I will cast this house, which I have made holy for my name, out of my sight; and Israel will be a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

The locusts have no king, yet they advance in ranks.

Then I returned and saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold, the tears of those who were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.

It will happen in that day that every place where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silver shekels, shall be for briers and thorns.

Take counsel together, and it will be brought to nothing; speak the word, and it will not stand, for God is with us.”

Thorns will come up in its palaces, nettles and thistles in its fortresses; and it will be a habitation of jackals, a court for ostriches.

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?

First I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable things, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.”

They will cut down her forest,” says Yahweh, “though it can’t be searched; because they are more than the locusts, and are innumerable.

Yahweh of Armies has sworn by himself, saying, ‘Surely I will fill you with men, as with the canker worm; and they will lift up a shout against you.’

How has the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger! He has cast the beauty of Israel down from heaven to the earth, and hasn’t remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.

But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the king’s dainties, nor with the wine which he drank. Therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.

“At that time Michael will stand up, the great prince who stands for the children of your people; and there will be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time. At that time your people will be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book.

“Ephraim is like an easily deceived dove, without understanding. They call to Egypt. They go to Assyria.

For, behold, they have gone away from destruction. Egypt will gather them up. Memphis will bury them. Nettles will possess their pleasant things of silver. Thorns will be in their tents.

“They won’t return into the land of Egypt; but the Assyrian will be their king, because they refused to repent.

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

Therefore Zion for your sake will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps of rubble, and the mountain of the temple like the high places of a forest.

Let your beauty be not just the outward adorning of braiding the hair, and of wearing jewels of gold, or of putting on fine clothing;

Your houses shall be filled, and the houses of all your servants, and the houses of all the Egyptians, as neither your fathers nor your fathers’ fathers have seen, since the day that they were on the earth to this day.’ ” He turned, and went out from Pharaoh.

The locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the borders of Egypt. They were very grievous. Before them there were no such locusts as they, nor will there ever be again.

The people stayed at a distance, and Moses came near to the thick darkness where God was.

When Jehu had come to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it; and she painted her eyes, and adorned her head, and looked out at the window.

He says in his heart, “I shall not be shaken. For generations I shall have no trouble.”

Clouds and darkness are around him. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.

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

There is a generation whose teeth are like swords, and their jaws like knives, to devour the poor from the earth, and the needy from among men.

It shall happen that instead of sweet spices, there shall be rottenness; instead of a belt, a rope; instead of well set hair, baldness; instead of a robe, a wearing of sackcloth; and branding instead of beauty.

It will sweep onward into Judah. It will overflow and pass through. It will reach even to the neck. The stretching out of its wings will fill the width of your land, Immanuel.

and look to the earth, and see distress, darkness, and the gloom of anguish. They will be driven into thick darkness.

Thorns and briers will come up on my people’s land; yes, on all the houses of joy in the joyous city.

Give glory to Yahweh your God, before he causes darkness, and before your feet stumble on the dark mountains, and while you look for light, he turns it into the shadow of death, and makes it deep darkness.

He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us, and against our judges who judged us, by bringing on us a great evil; for under the whole sky, such has not been done as has been done to Jerusalem.

They won’t dwell in Yahweh’s land; but Ephraim will return to Egypt, and they will eat unclean food in Assyria.

Like the noise of chariots on the tops of the mountains, they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devours the stubble, like a strong people set in battle array.

For, behold, he who forms the mountains, and creates the wind, and declares to man what is his thought; who makes the morning darkness, and treads on the high places of the earth: Yahweh, the God of Armies, is his name.”

You have sown much, and bring in little. You eat, but you don’t have enough. You drink, but you aren’t filled with drink. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm, and he who earns wages earns wages to put them into a bag with holes in it.”

For in those days there will be oppression, such as there has not been the like from the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never will be.

In the same way, that women also adorn themselves in decent clothing, with modesty and propriety, not just with braided hair, gold, pearls, or expensive clothing,

but if it bears thorns and thistles, it is rejected and near being cursed, whose end is to be burned.

For you have not come to a mountain that might be touched, and that burned with fire, and to blackness, darkness, storm,

wild waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever.