This message from the LORD came to Pethuel's son Joel.

"Grieve like a virgin, who, dressed in her mourner's clothes, cries out in memory of the man she was going to marry.

Both grain offering and wine offering have been removed from the LORD's Temple; the priests and ministering servants of the LORD are mourning."

The grapevine is shriveled and the fig tree is withered, along with the pomegranate tree, the palm tree, the apple tree and all of the cultivated trees. Truly, joy has evaporated from Adam's children."

"Put on your mourning clothes, you priests; and cry aloud, you ministering servants at the altar! Come! Stay the night in mourner's clothes, you ministers of my God, because the grain offering and the wine offering is held back from the Temple of your God.

"Sound the ram's horn in Zion! Sound an alarm on my holy mountain! Tremble, all of you inhabitants of the land, because the Day of the LORD is coming. Oh, how near it is!

"Sound the ram's horn in Zion! Dedicate a fast and call for a solemn assembly!

As they serve between the porch and the altar, let the priests and ministers of the LORD weep and pray: "Spare your people, LORD, and do not make your heritage a disgrace so that nations ridicule them. Why should they say among the people, "Where is their God?"'"

The LORD will say to his people, "Look! I will send you grain, new wine, and oil, and you will be content with them. I will no longer cause you to be a disgrace among the nations."

"I will remove the northerners from you, driving them to a barren and desolate land the front toward the Dead Sea and the back toward the Mediterranean. Their stench will rise, and their stinking odor will ascend, because they have done great things."

And so be glad, children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God, because he has given you the right amount of early rain, and he will cause the rain to fall for you, both the early rain and the later rain as before.

"Then it will come about at a later time that I will pour out my Spirit on every person. Your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Your elderly people will dream dreams, and your young people will see visions.

They cast lots for my people they sold a young boy in exchange for a prostitute, and a girl for wine, so they could drink."

"Furthermore, what have you to do with me, Tyre, Sidon, and all the sea coasts of Philistia? Are you taking revenge on me? If you are taking revenge on me, I'll send it back on you swiftly and promptly,

and sold Judah's and Jerusalem's descendants to the Greeks, so you can remove them far from their homeland!

Beat your plow blades into swords, and your pruning knives into spears! Let the frail say, "I am strong!"