Yoel

Chapter 1

1YHWH’s word that came to Yoel, the son of Pethuel. 2Hear 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? 3Tell your children about it, and have your children tell their children, and their children, another generation. 4What 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. 5Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth. 6For a nation has come up on my land, strong, and without number. His teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the fangs of a lioness. 7He has laid my vine waste, and stripped my fig tree. He has stripped its bark, and thrown it away. Its branches are made white. 8Mourn like a virgin dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth! 9The meal offering and the drink offering are cut off from YHWH’s house. The priests, YHWH’s ministers, mourn. 10The field is laid waste. The land mourns, for the grain is destroyed, The new wine has dried up, and the oil languishes. 11Be confounded, you farmers! Wail, you vineyard keepers, for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field has perished. 12The vine has dried up, and the fig tree withered— the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all of the trees of the field are withered; for joy has withered away from the sons of men. 13Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests! Wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my Elohim, for the meal offering and the drink offering are withheld from your Elohim’s house. 14Sanctify a fast. Call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of YHWH, your Elohim, and cry to YHWH. 15Alas for the day! For the day of YHWH is at hand, and it will come as destruction from the El Shaddai. 16Isn’t the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our Elohim? 17The seeds rot under their clods. The granaries are laid desolate. The barns are broken down, for the grain has withered. 18How the animals groan! The herds of livestock are perplexed, because they have no pasture. Yes, the flocks of sheep are made desolate. 19YHWH, I cry to you, for the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame has burnt all the trees of the field. 20Yes, 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.

Chapter 2

1Blow the trumpet in Tzion, and sound an alarm in my kodesh mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of YHWH comes, for it is close at hand: 2A 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. 3A 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. 4Their appearance is as the appearance of horses, and they run as horsemen. 5Like 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. 6At their presence the peoples are in anguish. All faces have grown pale. 7They run like mighty men. They climb the wall like warriors. They each march in his line, and they don’t swerve off course. 8One doesn’t jostle another. They each march in their own path. They burst through the defences and don’t break ranks. 9They rush on the city. They run on the wall. They climb up into the houses. They enter in at the windows like thieves. 10The earth quakes before them. The heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. 11YHWH thunders his voice before his army, for his forces are very great; for he is strong who obeys his command; for the day of YHWH is great and very awesome, and who can endure it? 12“Yet even now,” says YHWH, “turn to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning.” 13Tear your heart and not your garments, and turn to YHWH, your Elohim; for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in chesed, and relents from sending calamity. 14Who knows? He may turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, even a meal offering and a drink offering to YHWH, your Elohim. 15Blow the trumpet in Tzion! Sanctify a fast. Call a solemn assembly. 16Gather the people. Sanctify the assembly. Assemble the elders. Gather the children, and those who nurse from breasts. Let the bridegroom go out of his room, and the bride out of her chamber. 17Let the priests, the ministers of YHWH, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, “Spare your people, YHWH, and don’t give your heritage to reproach, that the nations should rule over them. Why should they say amongst the peoples, ‘Where is their Elohim?’” 18Then YHWH was jealous for his land, and had pity on his people. 19YHWH 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 amongst the nations. 20But I will remove the northern army far away from you, and will drive it into a barren and desolate land, its front into the eastern sea, and its back into the western sea; and its stench will come up, and its bad smell will rise.” Surely he has done great things. 21Land, don’t be afraid. Be glad and rejoice, for YHWH has done great things. 22Don’t be afraid, you animals of the field; for the pastures of the wilderness spring up, for the tree bears its fruit. The fig tree and the vine yield their strength. 23“Be glad then, you children of Tzion, and rejoice in YHWH, your Elohim; for he gives you the early rain in just measure, and he causes the rain to come down for you, the early rain and the latter rain, as before. 24The threshing floors will be full of wheat, and the vats will overflow with new wine and oil. 25I 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 amongst you. 26You will have plenty to eat and be satisfied, and will praise the name of YHWH, your Elohim, who has dealt wondrously with you; and my people will never again be disappointed. 27You will know that I am amongst Yisrael, and that I am YHWH, your Elohim, and there is no one else; and my people will never again be disappointed. 28“It will happen afterward, that I will pour out my Ruach on all flesh; and your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams. Your young men will see visions. 29And also on the servants and on the handmaids in those days, I will pour out my Ruach. 30I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: blood, fire, and pillars of smoke. 31The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of YHWH comes. 32It will happen that whoever will call on YHWH’s name shall be saved; for in Har Tzion and in Jerusalem there will be those who escape, as YHWH has said, and amongst the remnant, those whom YHWH calls.

Chapter 3

1“For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I restore the fortunes of Yehudah and Jerusalem, 2I will gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Yehoshafat; and I will execute judgement on them there for my people, and for my heritage, Yisrael, whom they have scattered amongst the nations. They have divided my land, 3and have cast lots for my people, and have given a boy for a prostitute, and sold a girl for wine, that they may drink. 4“Yes, and what are you to me, Tyre and Tzidon, and all the regions of Philistia? Will you repay me? And if you repay me, I will swiftly and speedily return your repayment on your own head. 5Because you have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried my finest treasures into your Battei HaMikdash, 6and have sold the children of Yehudah and the children of Jerusalem to the sons of the Yevanim, that you may remove them far from their border. 7Behold, I will stir them up out of the place where you have sold them, and will return your repayment on your own head; 8and I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hands of the children of Yehudah, and they will sell them to the men of Sheva, to a faraway nation, for YHWH has spoken it.” 9Proclaim this amongst the nations: “Prepare for war! Stir up the mighty men. Let all the warriors draw near. Let them come up. 10Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, ‘I am strong.’ 11Hurry and come, all you surrounding nations, and gather yourselves together.” Cause your mighty ones to come down there, YHWH. 12“Let the nations arouse themselves, and come up to the valley of Yehoshafat; for there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations. 13Put in the sickle; for the harvest is ripe. Come, tread, for the wine press is full, the vats overflow, for their wickedness is great.” 14Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of YHWH is near in the valley of decision. 15The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. 16YHWH will roar from Tzion, and thunder from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth will shake; but YHWH will be a refuge to his people, and a stronghold to the children of Yisrael. 17“So you will know that I am YHWH, your Elohim, dwelling in Tzion, my kodesh mountain. Then Jerusalem will be kodesh, and no strangers will pass through her any more. 18It will happen in that day, that the mountains will drop down sweet wine, the hills will flow with milk, all the brooks of Yehudah will flow with waters; and a fountain will flow out from YHWH’s house, and will water the valley of Shitim. 19Mitzrayim will be a desolation and Edom will be a desolate wilderness, for the violence done to the children of Yehudah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land. 20But Yehudah will be inhabited forever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation. 21I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed, for YHWH dwells in Tzion.”