Joel 2:1

When I tell the wicked, ‘You will surely die;’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; that wicked man will die in his iniquity; but I will require his blood at your hand.

His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his threshing floor. He will gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire.”

Now while Ezra prayed and made confession, weeping and casting himself down before God’s house, there was gathered together to him out of Israel a very great assembly of men and women and children; for the people wept very bitterly.

I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create calamity. I am Yahweh, who does all these things.

Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Yet again they will use this speech in the land of Judah and in its cities, when I reverse their captivity: ‘Yahweh bless you, habitation of righteousness, mountain of holiness.’

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

“Behold, I come like a thief. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his clothes, so that he doesn’t walk naked, and they see his shame.”

Yahweh said to him, “Who made man’s mouth? Or who makes one mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Isn’t it I, Yahweh?

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

Sanctify a fast. Call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders, and all the inhabitants of the land, to the house of Yahweh, your God, and cry to Yahweh.

You will know that I am among Israel, and that I am Yahweh, your God, and there is no one else; and my people will never again be disappointed.

Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples will plunder you, because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city and to all who dwell in it.

“I came to throw fire on the earth. I wish it were already kindled.

Remember therefore how you have received and heard. Keep it and repent. If therefore you won’t watch, I will come as a thief, and you won’t know what hour I will come upon you.

God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear;” and it was so.

But when the assembly is to be gathered together, you shall blow, but you shall not sound an alarm.

If you will not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and fearful name, YAHWEH your God,

David and all Israel played before God with all their might, even with songs, with harps, with stringed instruments, with tambourines, with cymbals, and with trumpets.

Let your ear now be attentive, and your eyes open, that you may listen to the prayer of your servant, which I pray before you at this time, day and night, for the children of Israel your servants, while I confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Yes, I and my father’s house have sinned.

“Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it broke out of the womb,

You will make them as a fiery furnace in the time of your anger. Yahweh will swallow them up in his wrath. The fire shall devour them.

Great is Yahweh, and greatly to be praised, in the city of our God, in his holy mountain.

You have set a boundary that they may not pass over, that they don’t turn again to cover the earth.

Awake, awake! Put on your strength, Zion. Put on your beautiful garments, Jerusalem, the holy city: for from now on the uncircumcised and the unclean will no more come into you.

Declare in Judah, and publish in Jerusalem; and say, ‘Blow the trumpet in the land!’ Cry aloud and say, ‘Assemble yourselves! Let’s go into the fortified cities!’

It will happen when you say, ‘Why has Yahweh our God done all these things to us?’ Then you shall say to them, ‘Just as you have forsaken me and served foreign gods in your land, so you will serve strangers in a land that is not yours.’

“Why do we sit still? Assemble yourselves! Let’s enter into the fortified cities, and let’s be silent there; for Yahweh our God has put us to silence, and given us poisoned water to drink, because we have sinned against Yahweh.

Who shouldn’t fear you, King of the nations? For it belongs to you. Because among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their royal estate, there is no one like you.

The whole valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes, and all the fields to the brook Kidron, to the corner of the horse gate toward the east, will be holy to Yahweh. It will not be plucked up or thrown down any more forever.”

Doesn’t evil and good come out of the mouth of the Most High?

For the day is near, even Yahweh’s day is near. It will be a day of clouds, a time of the nations.

“Though you, Israel, play the prostitute, yet don’t let Judah offend; and don’t come to Gilgal, neither go up to Beth Aven, nor swear, ‘As Yahweh lives.’

They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of Gibeah. He will remember their iniquity. He will punish them for their sins.

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

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?

Blow the trumpet in Zion! Sanctify a fast. Call a solemn assembly.

For the day of Yahweh is near all the nations! As you have done, it will be done to you. Your deeds will return upon your own head.

But in the latter days, it will happen that the mountain of Yahweh’s temple will be established on the top of the mountains, and it will be exalted above the hills; and peoples will stream to it.

Behold, on the mountains the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace! Keep your feasts, Judah! Perform your vows, for the wicked one will no more pass through you. He is utterly cut off.

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.

Sing and rejoice, daughter of Zion; for, behold, I come, and I will dwell within you,’ says Yahweh.

But no one knows of that day and hour, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only.

When Joshua and the children of Israel had finished killing them with a very great slaughter until they were consumed, and the remnant which remained of them had entered into the fortified cities,

Then Samuel went to Ramah; and Saul went up to his house to Gibeah of Saul.

How much more, when wicked men have slain a righteous person in his own house on his bed, should I not now require his blood from your hand, and rid the earth of you?”

He has described a boundary on the surface of the waters, and to the confines of light and darkness.

Yahweh is near to all those who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.

when he gave to the sea its boundary, that the waters should not violate his commandment, when he marked out the foundations of the earth,

It will happen that he who is left in Zion and he who remains in Jerusalem shall be called holy, even everyone who is written among the living in Jerusalem,

Therefore as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as the dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust, because they have rejected the law of Yahweh of Armies, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

Behold, they are like stubble. The fire will burn them. They won’t deliver themselves from the power of the flame. It won’t be a coal to warm at or a fire to sit by.

Then you will call, and Yahweh will answer. You will cry for help, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’ “If you take away from among you the yoke, finger pointing, and speaking wickedly;

“Flee for safety, you children of Benjamin, out of the middle of Jerusalem! Blow the trumpet in Tekoa and raise up a signal on Beth Haccherem, for evil looks out from the north with a great destruction.

“Micah the Morashtite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah; and he spoke to all the people of Judah, saying, ‘Yahweh of Armies says: “ ‘Zion will be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.’

Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it. It is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he will be saved out of it.

“Call together the archers against Babylon, all those who bend the bow. Encamp against her all around. Let none of it escape. Pay her back according to her work. According to all that she has done, do to her; for she has been proud against Yahweh, against the Holy One of Israel.

The time has come! The day draws near. Don’t let the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn; for wrath is on all its multitude.

As you rejoiced over the inheritance of the house of Israel because it was desolate, so I will do to you. You will be desolate, Mount Seir, and all Edom, even all of it. Then they will know that I am Yahweh.’ ”

Does the trumpet alarm sound in a city, without the people being afraid? Does evil happen to a city, and Yahweh hasn’t done it?

The house of Jacob will be a fire, the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble. They will burn among them, and devour them. There will not be any remaining to the house of Esau.” Indeed, Yahweh has spoken.

a day of the trumpet and alarm, against the fortified cities, and against the high battlements.

Therefore Yahweh says: “I have returned to Jerusalem with mercy. My house shall be built in it,” says Yahweh of Armies, “and a line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem.” ’

“But who can endure the day of his coming? And who will stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like launderers’ soap;

with all prayer and requests, praying at all times in the Spirit, and being watchful to this end in all perseverance and requests for all the saints:

punishing those who don’t know God, and to those who don’t obey the Good News of our Lord Jesus,

But the heavens that exist now and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

Who wouldn’t fear you, Lord, and glorify your name? For you only are holy. For all the nations will come and worship before you. For your righteous acts have been revealed.”

There will in no way enter into it anything profane, or one who causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Don’t you fear me?’ says Yahweh ‘Won’t you tremble at my presence, who have placed the sand for the bound of the sea, by a perpetual decree, that it can’t pass it? Though its waves toss themselves, yet they can’t prevail. Though they roar, they still can’t pass over it.’

“Blow the cornet in Gibeah, and the trumpet in Ramah! Sound a battle cry at Beth Aven, behind you, Benjamin!

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

“So you will know that I am Yahweh, your God, dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain. Then Jerusalem will be holy, and no strangers will pass through her any more.

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

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.

When they blow them, all the congregation shall gather themselves to you at the door of the Tent of Meeting.

When you blow an alarm, the camps that lie on the east side shall go forward.

Shebaniah, Joshaphat, Nethanel, Amasai, Zechariah, Benaiah, and Eliezer, the priests, blew the trumpets before God’s ark; and Obed-Edom and Jehiah were doorkeepers for the ark.

Thus all Israel brought the ark of Yahweh’s covenant up with shouting, with sound of the cornet, with trumpets, and with cymbals, sounding aloud with stringed instruments and harps.

My flesh trembles for fear of you. I am afraid of your judgments.

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:

Hear Yahweh’s word, you who tremble at his word: “Your brothers who hate you, who cast you out for my name’s sake, have said, ‘Let Yahweh be glorified, that we may see your joy;’ but it is those who shall be disappointed.

It will happen, when you tell this people all these words, and they ask you, ‘Why has Yahweh pronounced all this great evil against us?’ or ‘What is our iniquity? or ‘What is our sin that we have committed against Yahweh our God?’

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.

Tell them therefore, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “I will make this proverb to cease, and they will no more use it as a proverb in Israel;” ’ but tell them, ‘ “The days are at hand, and the fulfillment of every vision.

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.

if, when he sees the sword come on the land, he blows the trumpet, and warns the people;

But if the watchman sees the sword come, and doesn’t blow the trumpet, and the people aren’t warned, and the sword comes, and takes any person from among them; he is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand.’

“I make a decree that in all the dominion of my kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel; “for he is the living God, and steadfast forever. His kingdom is that which will not be destroyed. His dominion will be even to the end.

Lord, according to all your righteousness, let your anger and please let your wrath be turned away from your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain; because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a reproach to all who are around us.

While I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before Yahweh my God for the holy mountain of my God;

“Put the trumpet to your lips! Something like an eagle is over Yahweh’s house, because they have broken my covenant, and rebelled against my law.

He said, “Amos, what do you see?” I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then Yahweh said to me, “The end has come on my people Israel. I will not again pass by them any more.

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.

In that day you will not be disappointed for all your doings, in which you have transgressed against me; for then I will take away out from among you your proudly exulting ones, and you will no more be arrogant in my holy mountain.

Yahweh says: “I have returned to Zion, and will dwell in the middle of Jerusalem. Jerusalem shall be called ‘The City of Truth;’ and the mountain of Yahweh of Armies, ‘The Holy Mountain.’ ”

“For, behold, the day comes, it burns as a furnace; and all the proud, and all who work wickedness, will be stubble; and the day that comes will burn them up,” says Yahweh of Armies, “that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

For if the trumpet gave an uncertain sound, who would prepare himself for war?

For you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night.

You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.

But the end of all things is near. Therefore be of sound mind, self-controlled, and sober in prayer.