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?

Tell your children about it,
And let your children tell their children,
And their children the next generation.

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.

It has made My vine (My people) a waste and object of horror,
And splintered and broken My fig tree.
It has stripped them completely bare and thrown them away;
Their branches have become white.

The [daily] grain offering and the drink offering are cut off
From the house of the Lord;
The priests mourn
Who minister to the Lord.

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].

Has not the food been cut off before our eyes,
Joy and gladness from the house of our God?

The seeds [of grain] shrivel under the clods,
The storehouses are desolate and empty,
The barns are in ruins
Because the grain is dried up.

How the animals groan!
The herds of cattle are bewildered and wander aimlessly
Because they have no pasture;
Even the flocks of sheep suffer.

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.

Their appearance is like the appearance of horses,
And they run like war horses.

Like the noise of chariots
They leap on the tops of the mountains,
Like the crackling of a flame of fire devouring the stubble,
Like a mighty people set in battle formation.

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 do not crowd each other;
Each one marches in his path.
When they burst through the defenses (weapons),
They do not break ranks.

The earth quakes before them,
The heavens tremble,
The sun and the moon grow dark
And the stars lose their brightness.

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?

“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];

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?

Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord,
Weep between the porch and the altar,
And let them say, “Have compassion and spare Your people, O Lord,
And do not make Your inheritance (Israel) an object of ridicule,
Or a [humiliating] byword among the [Gentile] nations.
Why should they say among the peoples,
‘Where is their God?’”

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.

“You will have plenty to eat and be satisfied
And praise the name of the Lord your God
Who has dealt wondrously with you;
And My people shall never be put to shame.

“And you shall know [without any doubt] that I am in the midst of Israel [to protect and bless you],
And that I am the Lord your God,
And there is no other;
My people will never be put to shame.

“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.

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.

Because you have taken My silver and My gold and have carried My precious treasures to your temples and palaces,

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!

Beat your plowshares into swords
And your pruning hooks into spears;
Let the weak say, “I am strong!”

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

The sun and the moon grow dark
And the stars lose their brightness.

Then you will know and understand fully that I am the Lord your God,
Dwelling in Zion, My holy mountain.
Then Jerusalem will be holy,
And strangers [who do not belong] will no longer pass through it.