Blessed is he who reads this and those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep what is written in it, for the time is at hand. Revelation 1:3

Joel 1-3

Joel 1

The Invasion of Locusts

¹ The word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel.

² Hear this, you elders,
and listen, all you inhabitants of the land.
Has this ever happened in your days,
or in the days of your fathers?
³ Tell your children about it,
and have your children tell their children,
and their children, another generation.
⁴ What the swarming locust has left,
the great locust has eaten.
What the great locust has left,
the grasshopper has eaten.
What the grasshopper has left,
the caterpillar has eaten.

⁵ Wake up, you drunkards, and weep!
Wail, all you drinkers of wine,
because of the sweet wine,
for it is cut off from your mouth.
⁶ For a nation has come up on my land,
strong, and without number.
His teeth are the teeth of a lion,
and he has the fangs of a lioness.
⁷ He has laid my vine waste
and stripped my fig tree.
He has stripped its bark and thrown it away.
Its branches have turned white.

A Call to Mourning

⁸ Mourn like a virgin dressed in sackcloth
for the husband of her youth!
⁹ The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off
from the house of the Lord.
The priests, ministers of the Lord, mourn.
¹⁰ The field is laid waste.
The land mourns,
for the grain is destroyed.
The new wine has dried up,
and the oil languishes.
¹¹ Be confounded, you farmers!
Wail, you vineyard keepers.
for the wheat and for the barley,
for the harvest of the field has perished.
¹² The vine has dried up,
and the fig tree withered,
the pomegranate tree,
the palm tree also, and the apple tree,
all of the trees of the field are withered,
for joy has withered away from the sons of men.

A Call to Repentance

¹³ Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests!
Wail, you ministers of the altar.
Come, lie all night in sackcloth,
you ministers of my God,
for the grain offering and the drink offering
are withheld from the house of your God.

¹⁴ Consecrate a fast.
Call a solemn assembly.
Gather the elders,
and all the inhabitants of the land,
to the house of the Lord, your God,
and cry to the Lord.
¹⁵ Alas for this day!
For the day of the Lord is at hand,
and it will come as destruction from the Almighty.
¹⁶ Is the food not cut off before our eyes,
joy and gladness from the house of our God?
¹⁷ The seeds rot under their clods.
The granaries are laid desolate.
The barns are broken down,
for the grain has withered.
¹⁸ How the animals groan!
The herds of livestock roam in confusion
because they have no pasture.
Yes, even the flocks of sheep are suffering.

¹⁹ Lord, I cry to you.
for the fire has devoured
the pastures of the wilderness,
and the flame has burned
all the trees of the field.
²⁰ Yes, the animals of the field pant to you,
for the water brooks have dried up,
and the fire has devoured
the pastures of the wilderness.

Joel 2

An Army of Locusts

¹ Blow the trumpet in Zion,
and sound an alarm on my holy mountain!
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,
for the day of the Lord is coming,
for it is close at hand–
² a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds overcast and thick darkness.
As the dawn spreading on the mountains,
a great and strong people,
of which there has never been the like,
nor will there be again after them,
for many generations.

³ A fire devours before them,
and behind them, a flame burns.
The land is like the garden of Eden before them,
and behind them, a desolate wilderness.
Yes, and no one has escaped them.
⁴ Their appearance is like that of horses,
and they run like war horses.
⁵ Like the sound of chariots
over the tops of the mountains, they leap,
like the sound of a flame of fire that devours the stubble,
like a strong people set in battle array.

⁶ At their presence the nations writhe in terror.
Every face has grown pale.
⁷ They run like mighty men.
They climb the wall like warriors.
They each march in his line,
and they do not veer off course.
⁸ They do not push one another.
They march, everyone in his path,
and they burst through the defenses,
without breaking ranks.
⁹ They rush on the city.
They run on the wall.
They climb up into the houses.
They enter in at the windows like thieves.

¹⁰ The earth quakes before them.
The heavens tremble.
The sun and the moon are darkened,
and the stars withdraw their shining.
¹¹ The Lord thunders his voice
in the presence of his army.
His forces are very great,
for strong is he who executes his word.
For the day of the Lord is great and awesome,
and who can endure it?

Return with all your Heart

¹² “Yet even now,” says the Lord,
“turn to me with all your heart,
and with fasting, weeping, and mourning.”

¹³ Tear your heart, and not your garments,
and turn to the Lord, your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness,
and relents from sending calamity.
¹⁴ Who knows? He may turn and relent,
and leave a blessing behind him,
a grain offering and a drink offering
that you might give an offering to the Lord, your God.

¹⁵ Blow the trumpet in Zion!
Consecrate a fast.
Call a solemn assembly.
¹⁶ Gather the people.
Consecrate the assembly.
Assemble the elders.
Gather the children and nursing babies.
Let the bridegroom leave his room
and the bride her room.

¹⁷ Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord,
weep between the porch and the altar,
and let them say, “Spare your people, Lord,
and do not give your heritage to reproach,
that the nations should rule over them.
Why should they say among the peoples,
‘Where is their God?’ ”

Restoration Promised

¹⁸ Then the Lord was jealous for his land
and had pity on his people.
¹⁹ The Lord answered his people,
“I will send you grain, new wine, and oil,
and you will be satisfied with them,
and I will no longer make you a reproach among the nations.

²⁰ But I will remove the northern army far from you
and will drive it into a barren and desolate land.
Its front into the eastern sea
and its back into the western sea,
and its stench will come up,
and its bad smell will rise.”

Surely he has done great things.

²¹ Land, do not be afraid.
Be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things.
²² Do not be afraid, you animals of the field,
for the pastures of the wilderness spring up,
for the tree bears its fruit.
The fig tree and the vine yield their strength.

²³ Be glad then, you children of Zion,
and rejoice in the Lord, your God,
for he gives you the early rain in just measure,
and he causes the rain to come down for you,
the early rain and the latter rain, as before.
²⁴ The threshing floors will be full of wheat,
and the vats will overflow with new wine and oil.

²⁵ “I will restore what you lost
in the years that the swarming locust ate,
the great locust, the grasshopper, and the caterpillar,
my great army, which I sent against you.
²⁶ You will have plenty to eat, and be satisfied,
and will praise the name of the Lord, your God,
who has dealt wondrously with you,
and my people will never again be ashamed.
²⁷ You will know that I am among Israel,
and that I am the Lord, your God, and there is no one else,
and my people will never again be ashamed.”

I will Pour Out My Spirit

²⁸ “It will happen afterward,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters will prophesy.
Your old men will dream dreams.
Your young men will see visions.
²⁹ And also on the servants and on the handmaids in those days,
I will pour out my Spirit.
³⁰ I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth;
blood, fire, and pillars of smoke.
³¹ The sun will be turned into darkness,
and the moon into blood,
before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.
³² It will happen that whoever will call on the name of the Lord shall be saved,
for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be those who escape,
as the Lord has said,
and among the remnant, those whom the Lord calls.”

Joel 3

The Lord Judges the Nations

¹ “For in those days,
and in that time,
when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem,
² I will gather all nations,
and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat,
and I will execute judgment on them there for my people,
and for my heritage, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations.
They have divided my land,
³ and have cast lots for my people,
and have given a boy for a prostitute,
and sold a girl for wine, that they may drink.

⁴ Yes, and what are you to me, Tyre, and Sidon,
and all the regions of Philistia?
Will you retaliate against me?
And if you retaliate,
I will swiftly and speedily return your retaliation on your own head.
⁵ Because you have taken my silver and my gold,
and have carried my finest treasures into your temples,
⁶ and have sold the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem
to the sons of the Greeks,
that you may remove them far from their border.

⁷ I will stir them up out of the place where you have sold them
and will return your repayment on your own head,
⁸ and I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hands of the children of Judah,
and they will sell them to the men of Sheba,
to a faraway nation,
for the Lord has spoken it.”

⁹ Proclaim this among the nations:
“Prepare for war!
Stir up the mighty men.
Let all the warriors draw near.
Let them come up.

¹⁰ Beat your plowshares into swords,
and your pruning hooks into spears.
Let the weak say, ‘I am strong.’
¹¹ Hurry and come, all you surrounding nations,
and gather yourselves together.”
Cause your mighty ones to come down there, O Lord.

¹² “Let the nations be roused,
and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat,
for there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations.
¹³ Put in the sickle,
for the harvest is ripe.
Come, tread, for the wine press is full.
The vats overflow, for their wickedness is great.”

¹⁴ Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision!
For the day of the Lord is near, in the valley of decision.
¹⁵ The sun and the moon are darkened,
and the stars withdraw their shining.
¹⁶ The Lord will roar from Zion,
and thunder from Jerusalem,
and the heavens and the earth will shake,
but the Lord will be a refuge to his people
and a stronghold to the Israelites.

Blessings for God’s People

¹⁷ “So you will know that I am the Lord, your God,
dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain.
Then Jerusalem will be holy,
and no longer will strangers pass through her.

¹⁸ It will happen in that day,
that the mountains will drop down sweet wine,
the hills will flow with milk.
All the brooks of Judah will flow with waters,
and a fountain will flow out from the house of the Lord,
and will water the valley of Shittim.
¹⁹ Egypt will be a desolation,
and Edom will be a desolate wilderness,
for the violence done to the children of Judah,
because they have shed innocent blood in their land.
²⁰ But Judah will be inhabited forever
and Jerusalem from generation to generation.
²¹ I will avenge their blood,
that I have not yet avenged,
for the Lord dwells in Zion.”

Revelation 1

Prologue

¹ This is the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His servants the things which must happen soon. He sent it and signified it by His angel to His servant John, ² who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, about everything that he saw.

³ Blessed is he who reads this and those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep what is written in it, for the time is at hand.

John Greets the Seven Churches

⁴ John,

To the seven churches in the province of Asia:

Grace to you and peace from God, who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before his throne, ⁵ and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

To him who loves us, and washed us from our sins by his blood, ⁶ and made us a Kingdom, priests to his God and Father—to him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

⁷ He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, including those who pierced him. All the tribes of the earth will mourn over him. It shall be so! Amen.

⁸ “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

John’s Vision on Patmos

⁹ I, John, your brother and partner with you in the tribulation, kingdom, and perseverance in Christ Jesus, was on the island that is called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. ¹⁰ I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, like a trumpet ¹¹ saying, “What you see, write in a book and send to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.”

¹² I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. Having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands. ¹³ And among the lampstands was one like a son of man, clothed with a robe reaching down to his feet, and with a golden sash around his chest. ¹⁴ His head and his hair were white as white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire.

¹⁵ His feet were like burnished brass, as if it had been refined in a furnace. His voice was like the sound of rushing waters. ¹⁶ He had seven stars in his right hand. A sharp double-edged sword came from his mouth. His face was like the sun shining at its brightest.

¹⁷ When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. He laid his right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid. I am the first, and the last, ¹⁸ and the Living one. I was dead, and I am alive forever and ever. Amen. I have the keys of Death and of Hades.

¹⁹ Write down, therefore, the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will happen after this. ²⁰ The mystery of the seven stars which you saw in my right hand and the seven golden lampstands is this: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches. The seven lampstands are seven churches.”

Psalm 128

A Song of Ascents.

¹ Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord,
who walks in his ways.
² For you will eat the labor of your hands.
You will be happy, and it will be well with you.
³ Your wife will be like a fruitful vine
in the heart of your house,
your children like olive plants around your table.
⁴ Thus is the man blessed who fears the Lord.

⁵ May the Lord bless you from Zion,
and may you see the goodness of Jerusalem
all the days of your life.
⁶ Yes, may you see your children’s children.
Peace be upon Israel.

Proverbs 29:18

¹⁸ Where there is no revelation,
the people are without restraint,
but one who keeps the law is blessed.

«       »