Joel 2:22

Unless Yahweh builds the house, they who build it labor in vain. Unless Yahweh watches over the city, the watchman guards it in vain.

Let the favor of the Lord our God be on us. Establish the work of our hands for us. Yes, establish the work of our hands.

Let’s not be weary in doing good, for we will reap in due season, if we don’t give up.

and houses full of all good things which you didn’t fill, and cisterns dug out which you didn’t dig, vineyards and olive trees which you didn’t plant, and you shall eat and be full;

These all wait for you, that you may give them their food in due season.

“Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God.

I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.

As for the earth, out of it comes bread; Underneath it is turned up as it were by fire.

“Can you hunt the prey for the lioness, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,

The wilderness grasslands overflow. The hills are clothed with gladness.

who gives food to every creature; for his loving kindness endures forever.

The wilderness and the dry land will be glad. The desert will rejoice and blossom like a rose.

“I, even I, am he who comforts you. Who are you, that you are afraid of man who shall die, and of the son of man who will be made as grass?

Break out into joy! Sing together, you waste places of Jerusalem; for Yahweh has comforted his people. He has redeemed Jerusalem.

and Yahweh will guide you continually, satisfy your soul in dry places, and make your bones strong. You will be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters don’t fail.

It will happen in that day, I will respond,” says Yahweh, “I will respond to the heavens, and they will respond to the earth;

“Proclaim further, saying, ‘Yahweh of Armies says: “My cities will again overflow with prosperity, and Yahweh will again comfort Zion, and will again choose Jerusalem.” ’ ”

Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!

For if a man thinks himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.

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.

God give you of the dew of the sky, of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and new wine.

Your threshing shall continue until the vintage, and the vintage shall continue until the sowing time. You shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.

About Joseph he said, “His land is blessed by Yahweh, for the precious things of the heavens, for the dew, for the deep that couches beneath,

Surely the mountains produce food for him, where all the animals of the field play.

Your righteousness also, God, reaches to the heavens; you have done great things. God, who is like you?

Your way was through the sea; your paths through the great waters. Your footsteps were not known.

Yes, Yahweh will give that which is good. Our land will yield its increase.

sow fields, plant vineyards, and reap the fruits of increase.

In days to come, Jacob will take root. Israel will blossom and bud. They will fill the surface of the world with fruit.

The cedars in the garden of God could not hide it. The cypress trees were not like its boughs. The pine trees were not as its branches; nor was any tree in the garden of God like it in its beauty.

Yes, the animals of the field pant to you, for the water brooks have dried up, And the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

A fire devours before them, and behind them, a flame burns. The land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them, a desolate wilderness. Yes, and no one has escaped them.

Will a lion roar in the thicket, when he has no prey? Does a young lion cry out of his den, if he has caught nothing?

“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach against it, for their wickedness has come up before me.”

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.”

No plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up; for Yahweh God had not caused it to rain on the earth. There was not a man to till the ground,

Yahweh God planted a garden eastward, in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed.

It will yield thorns and thistles to you; and you will eat the herb of the field.

Every moving thing that lives will be food for you. As I gave you the green herb, I have given everything to you.

Isaac sowed in that land, and reaped in the same year one hundred times what he planted. Yahweh blessed him.

“ ‘As for those of you who are left, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight; and they shall flee, as one flees from the sword. They will fall when no one pursues.

Moreover your little ones, whom you said would be captured or killed, your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, shall go in there. I will give it to them, and they shall possess it.

You are Yahweh, even you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their army, the earth and all things that are on it, the seas and all that is in them, and you preserve them all. The army of heaven worships you.

If I have sinned, what do I do to you, you watcher of men? Why have you set me as a mark for you, so that I am a burden to myself?

Hear, oh, hear the noise of his voice, the sound that goes out of his mouth.

How great are your works, Yahweh! Your thoughts are very deep.

Sing praises to Yahweh with the harp, with the harp and the voice of melody.

Yahweh is good to all. His tender mercies are over all his works.

In that day, Yahweh’s branch will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land will be the beauty and glory of the survivors of Israel.

In that day you will say, “I will give thanks to you, Yahweh; for though you were angry with me, your anger has turned away and you comfort me.

He will give the rain for your seed, with which you will sow the ground; and bread of the increase of the ground will be rich and plentiful. In that day, your livestock will feed in large pastures.

Sing, heavens, and be joyful, earth! Break out into singing, mountains, for Yahweh has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his afflicted.

“For, as for your waste and your desolate places, and your land that has been destroyed, surely now that land will be too small for the inhabitants, and those who swallowed you up will be far away.

Those who will be of you will build the old waste places. You will raise up the foundations of many generations. You will be called Repairer of the Breach, Restorer of Paths with Dwellings.

Instead of your shame you will have double. Instead of dishonor, they will rejoice in their portion. Therefore in their land they will possess double. Everlasting joy will be to them.

As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you. You will be comforted in Jerusalem.”

“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” says Yahweh: “I will put my law in their inward parts, and I will write it in their heart. I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

You were in Eden, the garden of God. Every precious stone adorned you: ruby, topaz, emerald, chrysolite, onyx, jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and beryl. Gold work of tambourines and of pipes was in you. They were prepared in the day that you were created.

I made it beautiful by the multitude of its branches, so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied it.’

The tree of the field will yield its fruit, and the earth will yield its increase, and they will be secure in their land. Then they will know that I am Yahweh, when I have broken the bars of their yoke, and have delivered them out of the hand of those who made slaves of them.

I will be like the dew to Israel. He will blossom like the lily, and send down his roots like Lebanon.

Yahweh answered his people, “Behold, I will send you grain, new wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied with them; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations.

So two or three cities staggered to one city to drink water, and were not satisfied: yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh.

“I struck you with blight and mildew many times in your gardens and your vineyards; and the swarming locusts have devoured your fig trees and your olive trees; yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh.

Listen now to what Yahweh says: “Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear what you have to say.

I struck you with blight, mildew, and hail in all the work of your hands; yet you didn’t turn to me,’ says Yahweh.

Is the seed yet in the barn? Yes, the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree haven’t produced. From today I will bless you.’ ”

“For the seed of peace and the vine will yield its fruit, and the ground will give its increase, and the heavens will give their dew; and I will cause the remnant of this people to inherit all these things.

But seek first God’s Kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well.

Shouldn’t you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, even as I had mercy on you?’

He isn’t served by men’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself gives to all life and breath, and all things.

If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but don’t have love, I am nothing.

Be sober and self-controlled. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

From now on, when you till the ground, it won’t yield its strength to you. You will be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth.”

I will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full.

Ahab said to Obadiah, “Go through the land, to all the springs of water, and to all the brooks. Perhaps we may find grass and save the horses and mules alive, that we not lose all the animals.”

Its noise tells about him, and the livestock also concerning the storm that comes up.

Your righteousness is like the mountains of God. Your judgments are like a great deep. Yahweh, you preserve man and animal.

The earth has yielded its increase. God, even our own God, will bless us.

He causes the grass to grow for the livestock, and plants for man to cultivate, that he may produce food out of the earth:

The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their food from God.

For Yahweh has comforted Zion. He has comforted all her waste places, and has made her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of Yahweh. Joy and gladness will be found in them, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.

“ ‘ “But you, mountains of Israel, you shall shoot out your branches, and yield your fruit to my people Israel; for they are at hand to come.

I will multiply the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field, that you may receive no more the reproach of famine among the nations.

They will say, ‘This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden. The waste, desolate, and ruined cities are fortified and inhabited.’

Shouldn’t I be concerned for Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred twenty thousand persons who can’t discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much livestock?”

Through all that time, when one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten. When one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty, there were only twenty.

I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast its fruit before its time in the field,” says Yahweh of Armies.

So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.

The eyes of all wait for you. You give them their food in due season.