Listen to this, you elders; pay attention, all inhabitants of the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your whole life or in the lifetime of your ancestors?

Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you wine drinkers, because the sweet wine has been taken away from you.

Wail like a young virgin clothed in sackcloth, lamenting the death of her husband-to-be.

The crops of the fields have been destroyed. The ground is in mourning because the grain has perished. The fresh wine has dried up; the olive oil languishes.

Be distressed, farmers; wail, vinedressers, over the wheat and the barley. For the harvest of the field has perished.

The vine has dried up; the fig tree languishes -- the pomegranate, date, and apple as well. In fact, all the trees of the field have dried up. Indeed, the joy of the people has dried up!

Get dressed and lament, you priests! Wail, you who minister at the altar! Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you servants of my God, because no one brings grain offerings or drink offerings to the temple of your God anymore.

Announce a holy fast; proclaim a sacred assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the temple of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord.

How awful that day will be! For the day of the Lord is near; it will come as destruction from the Divine Destroyer.

To you, O Lord, I call out for help, for fire has burned up the grassy pastures, flames have razed all the trees in the fields.

Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm signal on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land shake with fear, for the day of the Lord is about to come. Indeed, it is near!

It will be a day of dreadful darkness, a day of foreboding storm clouds, like blackness spread over the mountains. It is a huge and powerful army -- there has never been anything like it ever before, and there will not be anything like it for many generations to come!

People writhe in fear when they see them. All of their faces turn pale with fright.

"Yet even now," the Lord says, "return to me with all your heart -- with fasting, weeping, and mourning. Tear your hearts, not just your garments!"

Who knows? Perhaps he will be compassionate and grant a reprieve, and leave blessing in his wake -- a meal offering and a drink offering for you to offer to the Lord your God!

Let the priests, those who serve the Lord, weep from the vestibule all the way back to the altar. Let them say, "Have pity, O Lord, on your people; please do not turn over your inheritance to be mocked, to become a proverb among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, "Where is their God?"

The Lord responded to his people, "Look! I am about to restore your grain as well as fresh wine and olive oil. You will be fully satisfied. I will never again make you an object of mockery among the nations.

I will remove the one from the north far from you. I will drive him out to a dry and desolate place. Those in front will be driven eastward into the Dead Sea, and those in back westward into the Mediterranean Sea. His stench will rise up as a foul smell." Indeed, the Lord has accomplished great things.

The threshing floors are full of grain; the vats overflow with fresh wine and olive oil.

I will make up for the years that the 'arbeh-locust consumed your crops -- the yeleq-locust, the hasil-locust, and the gazam-locust -- my great army that I sent against you.

You will have plenty to eat, and your hunger will be fully satisfied; you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has acted wondrously in your behalf. My people will never again be put to shame.

You will be convinced that I am in the midst of Israel. I am the Lord your God; there is no other. My people will never again be put to shame.

After all of this I will pour out my Spirit on all kinds of people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your elderly will have revelatory dreams; your young men will see prophetic visions.

Even on male and female servants I will pour out my Spirit in those days.

I will produce portents both in the sky and on the earth -- blood, fire, and columns of smoke.

The sunlight will be turned to darkness and the moon to the color of blood, before the day of the Lord comes -- that great and terrible day!

It will so happen that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be delivered. For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be those who survive, just as the Lord has promised; the remnant will be those whom the Lord will call.

For look! In those days and at that time I will return the exiles to Judah and Jerusalem.

Then I will gather all the nations, and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat. I will enter into judgment against them there concerning my people Israel who are my inheritance, whom they scattered among the nations. They partitioned my land,

Why are you doing these things to me, Tyre and Sidon? Are you trying to get even with me, land of Philistia? I will very quickly repay you for what you have done!

Look! I am rousing them from that place to which you sold them. I will repay you for what you have done!

I will sell your sons and daughters to the people of Judah. They will sell them to the Sabeans, a nation far away. Indeed, the Lord has spoken!

Proclaim this among the nations: "Prepare for a holy war! Call out the warriors! Let all these fighting men approach and attack!

Lend your aid and come, all you surrounding nations, and gather yourselves to that place." Bring down, O Lord, your warriors!

Let the nations be roused and let them go up to the valley of Jehoshaphat, for there I will sit in judgment on all the surrounding nations.

You will be convinced that I the Lord am your God, dwelling on Zion, my holy mountain. Jerusalem will be holy -- conquering armies will no longer pass through it.

On that day the mountains will drip with sweet wine, and the hills will flow with milk. All the dry stream beds of Judah will flow with water. A spring will flow out from the temple of the Lord, watering the Valley of Acacia Trees.

Egypt will be desolate and Edom will be a desolate wilderness, because of the violence they did to the people of Judah, in whose land they shed innocent blood.

But Judah will reside securely forever, and Jerusalem will be secure from one generation to the next.

I will avenge their blood which I had not previously acquitted. It is the Lord who dwells in Zion!