Give the story of it to your children, and let them give it to their children, and their children to another generation.

Put haircloth round you and give yourselves to sorrow, you priests; give cries of grief, you servants of the altar: come in, and, clothed in haircloth, let the night go past, you servants of my God: for the meal offering and the drink offering have been kept back from the house of your God.

Let a time be fixed for going without food, have a holy meeting, let the old men, even all the people of the land, come together to the house of the Lord your God, crying out to the Lord.

Let the horn be sounded in Zion, and a war-cry in my holy mountain; let all the people of the land be troubled: for the day of the Lord is coming;

Let your hearts be broken, and not your clothing, and come back to the Lord your God: for he is full of grace and pity, slow to be angry and great in mercy, ready to be turned from his purpose of punishment.

May it not be that he will again let his purpose be changed and let a blessing come after him, even a meal offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God?

Let a horn be sounded in Zion, let a time be fixed for going without food, have a holy meeting:

Get the people together, make the mass of the people holy, send for the old men, get together the children and babies at the breast: let the newly married man come out of his room and the bride from her tent.

Let the priests, the servants of the Lord, be weeping between the covered way and the altar, and let them say, Have mercy on your people, O Lord, do not give up your heritage to shame, so that the nations become their rulers: why let them say among the peoples, Where is their God?

And the Lord made answer and said to his people, See, I will send you grain and wine and oil in full measure: and I will no longer let you be shamed among the nations:

Be glad, then, you children of Zion, and have joy in the Lord your God: for he gives you food in full measure, making the rain come down for you, the early and the late rain as at the first.

And I will let wonders be seen in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and pillars of smoke.

For in those days and in that time, when I let the fate of Judah and Jerusalem be changed,

See, I will have them moved from the place where you have sent them, and will let what you have done come back on your head;

Give this out among the nations; make ready for war: get the strong men awake; let all the men of war come near, let them come up.

Get your plough-blades hammered into swords, and your vine-knives into spears: let the feeble say, I am strong.

Let the nations be awake, and come to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there I will be seated as judge of all the nations round about.

Egypt will be a waste and Edom a land of destruction, because of the evil done to the children of Judah, because they have let blood be drained out in their land without cause.