Daily Reading

1 The word of Jehovah which came to Joel the son of Pethuel.

2 Hear this, you elders, / And give heed, all you inhabitants of the land. / Has this ever happened in your days, / Or even in the days of your fathers?

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

4 What the cutting locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; / And what the swarming locust has left, the licking locust has eaten; / And what the licking locust has left, the consuming locust has eaten.

5 Awake, drunkards, and weep; / Howl, all you who drink wine, / Because of the fresh wine; / For it has been cut off from your mouth.

6 For a nation has come up against My land, / Mighty and without number; / Its teeth are the teeth of a lion, / And it has the cutting teeth of a lioness.

7 It has made My vine a desolation, / And My fig tree a heap of splinters. / It has stripped it bare and cast it away; / Its branches are white.

8 Wail like a virgin girded with sackcloth / Over the husband of her youth.

9 The meal offering and the drink offering are cut off / From the house of Jehovah; / The priests, the ministers of Jehovah, mourn.

10 The field is a waste; / The land mourns, / For the grain is a waste; / The new wine is dried up; / The fresh oil languishes.

11 Be ashamed, O farmers; / Howl, O vinedressers, / For the wheat and for the barley, / Because the harvest of the field has perished.

12 The vine is dried up, / And the fig tree languishes, / The pomegranate and the palm and the apple tree — / All the trees of the field are dried up; / Indeed gladness has withered away / From the children of men.

13 Gird yourselves and lament, O priests; / Howl, O ministers of the altar. / Come, pass the night in sackcloth, / O ministers of my God. / For the meal offering and the drink offering / Are held back from the house of your God.

14 Sanctify a fast; / Call a solemn assembly; / Gather the elders / And all the inhabitants of the land / To the house of Jehovah your God; / And cry unto Jehovah.

15 Alas for the day! / For the day of Jehovah has drawn near, / And as the destruction from the Almighty it will come.

16 Is not our food / Cut off before our eyes, / Joy and exultation / From the house of our God?

17 The seeds have shriveled / Under their clods; / The storehouses have been desolated; / The barns have been torn down; / For the grain is dried up.

18 How the beasts groan! / The herds of cattle are confused, / For they have no pasture; / The flocks of sheep also suffer punishment.

19 To You, O Jehovah, I cry out; / For fire has devoured / The pastures of the wilderness, / And the flame has set ablaze / All the trees of the field.

20 The beasts of the field also / Cry to You, / For the waterways / Are dried up, / And fire has devoured / The pastures of the wilderness.

1 Blow a trumpet in Zion; / Sound an alarm in My holy mountain; / Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, / For the day of Jehovah comes; / For it draws near:

2 A day of darkness and gloominess, / A day of clouds and deep darkness, / Like the dawn spread over the mountains — / A people great and mighty. / There has not been any like them / Since eternity, / And there will not be any more after them, / Even until the years of the generation of the generations.

3 A fire devours before them, / And after them a flame blazes. / Before them the land is like the garden of Eden, / After them, like a desolate wilderness; / And indeed no one escapes them.

4 Their appearance is like the appearance of horses; / And as horsemen, so they run.

5 Like the sound of chariots / Upon the mountaintops they leap, / Like the sound of a flame of fire / That devours the stubble, / Like a mighty people / Set in battle array.

6 At their presence the peoples writhed in anguish; / All faces became pale.

7 They run like mighty men; / Like men of battle they climb the wall. / And they march, each in his ways, / And do not break their ranks.

8 Nor do they crowd each other; / They march, each on his highway. / Though they fall among weapons, / They do not break off their progress.

9 They rush at the city; / They run against the wall; / They go up into the houses; / In through the windows / They go, like a thief.

10 The earth quakes before them; / The heavens shake; / The sun and the moon grow dark, / And the stars withdraw their shining.

11 And Jehovah utters His voice / Before His army, / For His camp is very great, / For He who executes His word is mighty. / For the day of Jehovah is great / And very terrible, / And who can endure it?

12 Yet even now, / Declares Jehovah, / Turn to Me with all your heart / And with fasting and weeping and mourning;

13 And rend your hearts, / And not your garments, / And turn to Jehovah your God, / For He is gracious and compassionate, / Long-suffering and abundant in lovingkindness / And repentant of evil.

14 Who knows whether He will turn and repent / And leave a blessing behind Him, / A meal offering and a drink offering / To Jehovah your God?

15 Blow a trumpet in Zion; / Sanctify a fast; / Call a solemn assembly;

16 Gather the people; / Sanctify the congregation; / Assemble the elders; / Gather the children / And those who suck the breasts; / Let the bridegroom go forth from his chamber, / And the bride from her canopy.

17 Let the priests, the ministers of Jehovah, / Weep between the porch and the altar, / And let them say, / Look with pity, O Jehovah, upon Your people; / And do not give Your inheritance over to reproach, / That the nations should rule over them. / Why should they say among the peoples, / Where is their God?

18 Then Jehovah became jealous for His land, / And He spared His people.

19 And Jehovah answered and said to His people, / I am about to send you / The grain and the new wine and the fresh oil, / And you will be satisfied with it; / And I will no longer make you / A reproach among the nations,

20 But the northern army / I will remove far from you; / And I will drive it into a land / Barren and desolate, / With its face toward the eastern sea / And its end toward the western sea. / And its stench will go up, / And its foul smell will go up, / For it has done great things.

21 Do not fear, O land; / Be glad and rejoice, / For Jehovah has done great things.

22 Do not fear, O beasts of the field, / For the pastures of the wilderness turn green. / For the tree bears its fruit; / The fig tree and the vine yield their strength.

23 O children of Zion, / Be glad and rejoice / In Jehovah your God. / For He gives you / The early rain in righteousness, / And He makes the rain come down for you: / The early rain and the late rain / At the beginning of the season.

24 And the threshing floors will be full of grain, / And the wine vats will overflow with new wine and fresh oil.

25 And I will restore to you the years / That the swarming locust has eaten, / The licking locust and the consuming locust and the cutting locust, / My great army / That I sent among you.

26 And you will eat to the full and be satisfied, / And you will praise the name of Jehovah your God, / Who has dealt wondrously with you; / And My people will never be ashamed.

27 And you will know that I am in the midst of Israel, / And that I am Jehovah your God and there is none else. / And My people will never be ashamed.

28 And afterward I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh, / And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; / Your old men shall dream dreams; / Your young men shall see visions.

29 Indeed even upon the male and female slaves / In those days I will pour out My Spirit.

30 And I will show wonders in the heavens and on earth: / Blood and fire and pillars of smoke.

31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, / And the moon into blood, / Before the great and terrible / Day of Jehovah comes.

32 And everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah shall be saved; / For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem will be an escape, / As Jehovah has said, / Even for the remnant / Whom Jehovah calls.

1 For indeed, in those days and at that time / When I turn the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem,

2 I will gather all the nations / And will bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat; / And I will enter into judgment with them there / Because of My people and My inheritance Israel, / Whom they have scattered among the nations. / And they have divided My land

3 And have cast lots for My people; / And they have given a boy for a prostitute / And sold a girl for wine to drink.

4 Indeed then, what are you to Me, Tyre and Sidon / And all the regions of Philistia? / Will you repay Me with a recompense? / But if you recompense Me, / Swiftly, speedily, / I will return your recompense upon your own head.

5 In that you have taken My silver and My gold, / And have brought My fine precious things into your temples,

6 And have sold to the children of the Javanim / The children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem, / In order to remove them / Far from their borders;

7 I will rouse them out of the place / To which you have sold them, / And will return your recompense upon your own head.

8 And 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 nation that is far off, / For Jehovah has spoken.

9 Proclaim this among the nations: / Prepare the battle; / Rouse the mighty men; / Let all the men of battle / Draw near; let them go up.

10 Beat your plowshares into swords, / And your pruning knives into spears; / Let the weak say, / I am mighty.

11 Hurry and come, / All you surrounding nations, / And be gathered. / There cause Your mighty ones to descend, O Jehovah!

12 Let the nations rouse themselves and come up / To the valley of Jehoshaphat. / For there I will sit to judge / All the surrounding nations.

13 Send forth the sickle, / For the harvest is ripe; / Come, tread, / For the winepress is full; / The wine vats overflow, / For their evil is great.

14 Multitudes, multitudes, / In the valley of decision; / For the day of Jehovah has drawn near / In the valley of decision.

15 The sun and the moon grow dark, / And the stars withdraw their shining.

16 And Jehovah will roar from Zion, / And from Jerusalem He will utter His voice, / And the heavens and the earth will shake. / But Jehovah will be a shelter to His people / And a stronghold to the children of Israel.

17 Thus you will know that I am Jehovah your God, / Dwelling in Zion, My holy mountain. / And Jerusalem will be holy, / And strangers will pass through her no longer.

18 And in that day / The mountains will drop down fresh wine, / And the hills will flow with milk; / And all the waterways of Judah / Will flow with water, / And a fountain will go forth from the house of Jehovah, / And it will water the valley of Shittim.

19 Egypt will be a desolation, / And Edom will be a desolate wilderness, / Because of the violence against the children of Judah, / In that they have shed innocent blood in their land.

20 But Judah will abide forever, / And Jerusalem, from generation to generation;

21 And I will acquit them of their bloodshed that I had not acquitted them of, / For Jehovah dwells in Zion.

1 And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying like the sound of thunder, Come.

2 And I saw, and behold, a white horse, and he who sits on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went forth conquering and to conquer.

3 And when He opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, Come.

4 And I saw, and behold, another horse, a red one, went forth; and to him who sits on it, to him authority was given to take peace from the earth, and that men should slay one another; and to him a great sword was given.

5 And when He opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, Come. And I saw, and behold, a black horse; and he who sits on it had a balance in his hand.

6 And I heard as it were a voice in the midst of the four living creatures, saying, A choenix of wheat for a denarius and three choenixes of barley for a denarius; and do not harm the oil and the wine.

7 And when He opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature, saying, Come.

8 And I saw, and behold, a pale horse, and he who sits upon it, his name is Death; and Hades followed with him. And authority was given to them over the fourth part of the earth to kill with the sword and with famine and with death and by the beasts of the earth.

9 And when He opened the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and because of the testimony which they had.

10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Master, holy and true, will You not judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?

11 And to each of them was given a white robe; and it was said to them that they should rest yet a little while, until also the number of their fellow slaves and their brothers who were about to be killed, even as they were, is completed.

12 And I saw when He opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black like sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood;

13 And the stars of heaven fell to the earth as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind.

14 And heaven was removed like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

15 And the kings of the earth and the great men and the generals and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains;

16 And they say to the mountains and to the rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits upon the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb;

17 For the great day of Their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?