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

Even the wild animals cry out to you; for the river beds have dried up; fire has destroyed the grassy pastures.

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!

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!

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.

Do not fear, wild animals! For the pastures of the wilderness are again green with grass. Indeed, the trees bear their fruit; the fig tree and the vine yield to their fullest.

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!

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!