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The Prophecy
of Joel 3
For behold in those days, and in that time when I shall
bring back the captivity of Juda and Jerusalem:
I will gather together all nations, and will bring them
down into the valley of Josaphat: and I will plead with
them there for my people, and for my inheritance Israel,
whom they have scattered among the nations, and have
parted my land.
And they have cast lots upon my people: and the boy
they have put in the stews, and the girl they have sold
for wine, that they might drink.
But what have you to do with me, O Tyre, and Sidon,
and all the coast of the Philistines? will you revenge
yourselves on me? and if you revenge yourselves on me,
I will very soon return you a recompense upon your own
head.
For you have taken away my silver and my gold: and my
desirable and most beautiful things you have carried
into your temples.
And the children of Juda, and the children of Jerusalem
you have sold to the children of the Greeks, that you
might remove them far off from their own country.
Behold, I will raise them up out of the place wherein
you have sold them: and I will return your recompense
upon your own heads.
And I will sell your sons, and your daughters by the
hands of the children of Juda, and they shall sell them
to the Sabeans, a nation far off, for the Lord hath
spoken it.
Proclaim ye this among the nations: prepare war, rouse
up the strong: let them come, let all the men of war
come up.
Cut your ploughshares into swords, and your spades into
spears. Let the weak say: I am strong.
Break forth, and come, all ye nations, from round about,
and gather yourselves together: there will the Lord
cause all thy strong ones to fall down.
Let them arise, and let the nations come up into the
valley of Josaphat: for there I will sit to judge all
nations round about.
Put ye in the sickles, for the harvest is ripe: come
and go down, for the press is full, the fats run over:
for their wickedness is multiplied.
Nations, nations in the valley of destruction: for the
day of the Lord is near in the valley of destruction.
The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars have
withdrawn their shining.
And the Lord shall roar out of Sion, and utter his voice
from Jerusalem: and the heavens and the earth shall
be moved, and the Lord shall be the hope of his people,
and the strength of the children of Israel.
And you shall know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling
in Sion my holy mountain: and Jerusalem shall be holy
and strangers shall pass through it no more.
And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains
shall drop down sweetness, and the hills shall flow
with milk: and waters shall flow through all the rivers
of Juda: and a fountain shall come forth of the house
of the Lord, and shall water the torrent of thorns.
Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom a wilderness destroyed:
because they have done unjustly against the children
of Juda, and have shed innocent blood in their land.
And Judea shall be inhabited for ever, and Jerusalem
to generation and generation.
And I will cleanse their blood which I had not cleansed:
and the Lord will dwell in Sion.
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