Awake [from your intoxication], you drunkards, and weep;
Wail, all you drinkers of wine,
Because of the [fresh] sweet wine
That is cut off from your mouth.

For a [pagan and hostile] nation has invaded My land [like locusts],
Mighty and without number;
Its teeth are the teeth of a lion,
And it has the fangs of a lioness.

Wail like a virgin [bride] clothed with sackcloth
For the bridegroom of her youth [who has died].

The field is ruined,
The ground mourns;
For the grain is ruined,
The new wine is dried up,
The fresh oil fails.

Be ashamed, O farmers;
Wail, O vinedressers,
For the wheat and for the barley,
Because the harvest of the field has perished.

Clothe yourselves with sackcloth
And lament (cry out in grief), O priests;
Wail, O ministers of the altar!
Come, spend the night in sackcloth [and pray without ceasing],
O ministers of my God,
For the grain offering and the drink offering
Are withheld from the house of your God.

Alas for the day!
For the [judgment] day of the Lord is at hand,
And it will come [upon the nation] as a destruction from the Almighty.

O Lord, I cry out to You,
For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness,
And the flame has burned up all the trees of the field.

Even the wild animals pant [in longing] for You;
For the water brooks are dried up
And fire has consumed the pastures of the wilderness.

Blow the trumpet in Zion [warning of impending judgment],
Sound an alarm on My holy mountain [Zion]!
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble and shudder in fear,
For the [judgment] day of the Lord is coming;
It is close at hand,

The Lord utters His voice before His army,
For His camp is very great,
Because strong and powerful is he who [obediently] carries out His word.
For the day of the Lord is indeed great and very terrible [causing dread];
Who can endure it?

Rip your heart to pieces [in sorrow and contrition] and not your garments.”
Now return [in repentance] to the Lord your God,
For He is gracious and compassionate,
Slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness [faithful to His covenant with His people];
And He relents [His sentence of] evil [when His people genuinely repent].

Who knows whether He will relent [and revoke your sentence],
And leave a blessing behind Him,
Even a grain offering and a drink offering [from the bounty He provides you]
For the Lord your God?

Then the Lord will be jealous for His land [ready to defend it since it is rightfully and uniquely His]
And will have compassion on His people [and will spare them].

Do not fear, O land; be glad and rejoice,
For the Lord has done great things!

Do not be afraid, you animals of the field,
For the pastures of the wilderness have turned green;
The tree has produced its fruit,
And the fig tree and the vine have yielded in full.

So rejoice, O children of Zion,
And delight in the Lord, your God;
For He has given you the early [autumn] rain in vindication
And He has poured down the rain for you,
The early [autumn] rain and the late [spring] rain, as before.

“And I will compensate you for the years
That the swarming locust has eaten,
The creeping locust, the stripping locust, and the gnawing locust—
My great army which I sent among you.

“And it shall come about that whoever calls on the name of the Lord
Will be saved [from the coming judgment]
For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem
There will be those who escape,
As the Lord has said,
Even among the remnant [of survivors] whom the Lord calls.

“For behold, in those [climactic] days and at that time,
When I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem,

I will gather together all the [Gentile] nations [that were hostile to My people]
And bring them down into the Valley of Jehoshaphat (the Lord has judged).
And there I will deal with them and enter into judgment with them there
For [their treatment of] My people, My inheritance, Israel,
Whom they have scattered among the nations,
And [because] they have encroached on My land and divided it up.

“They have also cast lots for My people,
And have traded a boy for a prostitute
And have sold a girl for wine that they may drink.

Moreover, what are you to Me, O Tyre and Sidon and all the [five small] regions of Philistia? Will you pay Me back for something [I have supposedly done to you]? Even if you do pay Me back, I will swiftly and speedily return your deed [of retaliation] on your own head.

Also I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans, to a distant nation,” for the Lord has spoken.

Let the nations be stirred [to action]
And come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat,
For there I will sit to judge and punish
All the surrounding nations.

Put in the sickle [of judgment], for the harvest is ripe;
Come, tread [the grapes], for the wine press is full;
The vats overflow, for the wickedness [of the people] is great.

Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision (judgment)!
For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision [when judgment is executed].

The Lord thunders and roars from Zion
And utters His voice from Jerusalem [in judgment of His enemies],
And the heavens and the earth tremble and shudder;
But the Lord is a refuge for His people
And a stronghold [of protection] to the children of Israel.

Egypt will become a waste,
And Edom will become a desolate wilderness,
Because of their violence against the children of Judah,
In whose land they have shed innocent blood.

And I shall avenge their blood which I have not avenged,
For the Lord dwells in Zion.