Hear this, O elders,
Listen closely, all inhabitants of the land!
Has such a thing as this occurred in your days,
Or even in the days of your fathers?

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.

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.

The vine dries up
And the fig tree fails;
The pomegranate, the palm also, and the apple tree,
All the trees of the field dry up,
Indeed, joy dries up and withdraws
From the sons of men.

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.

Consecrate a fast,
Proclaim a solemn assembly,
Gather the elders
And all the inhabitants of the land
To the house of the Lord your God,
And cry out to the Lord [in penitent pleadings].

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.

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,

Before them the people are in anguish;
All faces become pale [with terror].

They run like warriors;
They climb the wall like soldiers.
They each march [straight ahead] in line,
And they do not deviate from their paths.

They rush over the city,
They run on the wall;
They climb up into the houses,
They enter at the windows like a thief.

“Even now,” says the Lord,
“Turn and come to Me with all your heart [in genuine repentance],
With fasting and weeping and mourning [until every barrier is removed and the broken fellowship is restored];

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?

The Lord will answer and say to His people,
“Behold, I am going to send you grain and new wine and oil,
And you will be satisfied in full with them;
And I will never again make you an object of ridicule among the [Gentile] nations.

“But I will remove the northern army far away from you,
And I will drive it into a parched and desolate land,
With its forward guard into the eastern sea (Dead Sea)
And with its rear guard into the western sea (Mediterranean Sea).
And its stench will arise and its foul odor of decay will come up [this is the fate of the northern army in the final day of the Lord],
For He has done great things.”

And the threshing floors shall be full of grain,
And the vats shall overflow with new wine and oil.

“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.

“It shall come about after this
That I shall pour out My Spirit on all mankind;
And your sons and your daughters will prophesy,
Your old men will dream dreams,
Your young men will see visions.

“Even on the male and female servants
I will pour out My Spirit in those days.

“I will show signs and wonders [displaying My power] in the heavens and on the earth,
Blood and fire and columns of smoke.

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.

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.

behold, I am going to stir them up from the place where you have sold them [and return them to their land], and I shall return your action [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.

Proclaim this among the [pagan] nations:
Prepare a war! Stir up the mighty men!
Let all the men of war come near, let them come up!

Hurry and come, all you surrounding nations,
And gather yourselves there;
Bring down, O Lord, Your mighty ones (Your warriors).

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.

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.

And in that day
The mountains will drip with sweet wine
And the hills will flow with milk;
And all the brooks and riverbeds of Judah will flow with water,
And a fountain will go out from the house of the Lord
To water the [desert] Valley of Shittim.

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