Retribution for Israel’s Sin

1Israel is a luxuriant vine;

He produces fruit for himself.

The more his fruit,

The more altars he made;

The richer his land,

The better he made the sacred pillars.

2Their heart is faithless;

Now they must bear their guilt.

The Lord will break down their altars

And destroy their sacred pillars.

3Surely now they will say, “We have no king,

For we do not revere the Lord.

As for the king, what can he do for us?”

4They speak mere words,

With worthless oaths they make covenants;

And judgment sprouts like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field.

5The inhabitants of Samaria will fear

For the calf of Beth-aven.

Indeed, its people will mourn for it,

And its idolatrous priests will cry out over it,

Over its glory, since it has departed from it.

6The thing itself will be carried to Assyria

As tribute to King Jareb;

Ephraim will be seized with shame

And Israel will be ashamed of its own counsel.

7Samaria will be cut off with her king

Like a stick on the surface of the water.

8Also the high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, will be destroyed;

Thorn and thistle will grow on their altars;

Then they will say to the mountains,

“Cover us!” And to the hills, “Fall on us!”

9From the days of Gibeah you have sinned, O Israel;

There they stand!

Will not the battle against the sons of iniquity overtake them in Gibeah?

10When it is My desire, I will chastise them;

And the peoples will be gathered against them

When they are bound for their double guilt.

11Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh,

But I will come over her fair neck with a yoke;

I will harness Ephraim,

Judah will plow, Jacob will harrow for himself.

12Sow with a view to righteousness,

Reap in accordance with kindness;

Break up your fallow ground,

For it is time to seek the Lord

Until He comes to rain righteousness on you.

13You have plowed wickedness, you have reaped injustice,

You have eaten the fruit of lies.

Because you have trusted in your way, in your numerous warriors,

14Therefore a tumult will arise among your people,

And all your fortresses will be destroyed,

As Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel on the day of battle,

When mothers were dashed in pieces with their children.

15Thus it will be done to you at Bethel because of your great wickedness.

At dawn the king of Israel will be completely cut off.

God Yearns over His People

1When Israel was a youth I loved him,

And out of Egypt I called My son.

2The more they called them,

The more they went from them;

They kept sacrificing to the Baals

And burning incense to idols.

3Yet it is I who taught Ephraim to walk,

I took them in My arms;

But they did not know that I healed them.

4I led them with cords of a man, with bonds of love,

And I became to them as one who lifts the yoke from their jaws;

And I bent down and fed them.

5They will not return to the land of Egypt;

But Assyria—he will be their king

Because they refused to return to Me.

6The sword will whirl against their cities,

And will demolish their gate bars

And consume them because of their counsels.

7So My people are bent on turning from Me.

Though they call them to the One on high,

None at all exalts Him.

8How can I give you up, O Ephraim?

How can I surrender you, O Israel?

How can I make you like Admah?

How can I treat you like Zeboiim?

My heart is turned over within Me,

All My compassions are kindled.

9I will not execute My fierce anger;

I will not destroy Ephraim again.

For I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst,

And I will not come in wrath.

10They will walk after the Lord,

He will roar like a lion;

Indeed He will roar

And His sons will come trembling from the west.

11They will come trembling like birds from Egypt

And like doves from the land of Assyria;

And I will settle them in their houses, declares the Lord.

12Ephraim surrounds Me with lies

And the house of Israel with deceit;

Judah is also unruly against God,

Even against the Holy One who is faithful.

Ephraim Reminded

1Ephraim feeds on wind,

And pursues the east wind continually;

He multiplies lies and violence.

Moreover, he makes a covenant with Assyria,

And oil is carried to Egypt.

2The Lord also has a dispute with Judah,

And will punish Jacob according to his ways;

He will repay him according to his deeds.

3In the womb he took his brother by the heel,

And in his maturity he contended with God.

4Yes, he wrestled with the angel and prevailed;

He wept and sought His favor.

He found Him at Bethel

And there He spoke with us,

5Even the Lord, the God of hosts,

The Lord is His name.

6Therefore, return to your God,

Observe kindness and justice,

And wait for your God continually.

7A merchant, in whose hands are false balances,

He loves to oppress.

8And Ephraim said, “Surely I have become rich,

I have found wealth for myself;

In all my labors they will find in me

No iniquity, which would be sin.”

9But I have been the Lord your God since the land of Egypt;

I will make you live in tents again,

As in the days of the appointed festival.

10I have also spoken to the prophets,

And I gave numerous visions,

And through the prophets I gave parables.

11Is there iniquity in Gilead?

Surely they are worthless.

In Gilgal they sacrifice bulls,

Yes, their altars are like the stone heaps

Beside the furrows of the field.

12Now Jacob fled to the land of Aram,

And Israel worked for a wife,

And for a wife he kept sheep.

13But by a prophet the Lord brought Israel from Egypt,

And by a prophet he was kept.

14Ephraim has provoked to bitter anger;

So his Lord will leave his bloodguilt on him

And bring back his reproach to him.

Ephraim’s Idolatry

1When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling.

He exalted himself in Israel,

But through Baal he did wrong and died.

2And now they sin more and more,

And make for themselves molten images,

Idols skillfully made from their silver,

All of them the work of craftsmen.

They say of them, “Let the men who sacrifice kiss the calves!”

3Therefore they will be like the morning cloud

And like dew which soon disappears,

Like chaff which is blown away from the threshing floor

And like smoke from a chimney.

4Yet I have been the Lord your God

Since the land of Egypt;

And you were not to know any god except Me,

For there is no savior besides Me.

5I cared for you in the wilderness,

In the land of drought.

6As they had their pasture, they became satisfied,

And being satisfied, their heart became proud;

Therefore they forgot Me.

7So I will be like a lion to them;

Like a leopard I will lie in wait by the wayside.

8I will encounter them like a bear robbed of her cubs,

And I will tear open their chests;

There I will also devour them like a lioness,

As a wild beast would tear them.

9It is your destruction, O Israel,

That you are against Me, against your help.

10Where now is your king

That he may save you in all your cities,

And your judges of whom you requested,

“Give me a king and princes”?

11I gave you a king in My anger

And took him away in My wrath.

12The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up;

His sin is stored up.

13The pains of childbirth come upon him;

He is not a wise son,

For it is not the time that he should delay at the opening of the womb.

14Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol?

Shall I redeem them from death?

O Death, where are your thorns?

O Sheol, where is your sting?

Compassion will be hidden from My sight.

15Though he flourishes among the reeds,

An east wind will come,

The wind of the Lord coming up from the wilderness;

And his fountain will become dry

And his spring will be dried up;

It will plunder his treasury of every precious article.

16Samaria will be held guilty,

For she has rebelled against her God.

They will fall by the sword,

Their little ones will be dashed in pieces,

And their pregnant women will be ripped open.

Israel’s Future Blessing

1Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God,

For you have stumbled because of your iniquity.

2Take words with you and return to the Lord.

Say to Him, “Take away all iniquity

And receive us graciously,

That we may present the fruit of our lips.

3Assyria will not save us,

We will not ride on horses;

Nor will we say again, ‘Our god,’

To the work of our hands;

For in You the orphan finds mercy.”

4I will heal their apostasy,

I will love them freely,

For My anger has turned away from them.

5I will be like the dew to Israel;

He will blossom like the lily,

And he will take root like the cedars of Lebanon.

6His shoots will sprout,

And his beauty will be like the olive tree

And his fragrance like the cedars of Lebanon.

7Those who live in his shadow

Will again raise grain,

And they will blossom like the vine.

His renown will be like the wine of Lebanon.

8O Ephraim, what more have I to do with idols?

It is I who answer and look after you.

I am like a luxuriant cypress;

From Me comes your fruit.

9Whoever is wise, let him understand these things;

Whoever is discerning, let him know them.

For the ways of the Lord are right,

And the righteous will walk in them,

But transgressors will stumble in them.

The Book of

JOEL

The Devastation of Locusts

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

2Hear this, O elders,

And listen, all inhabitants of the land.

Has anything like this happened in your days

Or in your fathers’ days?

3Tell your sons about it,

And let your sons tell their sons,

And their sons the next generation.

4What the gnawing locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten;

And what the swarming locust has left, the creeping locust has eaten;

And what the creeping locust has left, the stripping locust has eaten.

5Awake, drunkards, and weep;

And wail, all you wine drinkers,

On account of the sweet wine

That is cut off from your mouth.

6For a nation has invaded my land,

Mighty and without number;

Its teeth are the teeth of a lion,

And it has the fangs of a lioness.

7It has made my vine a waste

And my fig tree splinters.

It has stripped them bare and cast them away;

Their branches have become white.

8Wail like a virgin girded with sackcloth

For the bridegroom of her youth.

9The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off

From the house of the Lord.

The priests mourn,

The ministers of the Lord.

10The field is ruined,

The land mourns;

For the grain is ruined,

The new wine dries up,

Fresh oil fails.

11Be ashamed, O farmers,

Wail, O vinedressers,

For the wheat and the barley;

Because the harvest of the field is destroyed.

12The vine dries up

And the fig tree fails;

The pomegranate, the palm also, and the apple tree,

All the trees of the field dry up.

Indeed, rejoicing dries up

From the sons of men.

13Gird yourselves with sackcloth

And lament, O priests;

Wail, O ministers of the altar!

Come, spend the night in sackcloth

O ministers of my God,

For the grain offering and the drink offering

Are withheld from the house of your God.

Starvation and Drought

14Consecrate a fast,

Proclaim a solemn assembly;

Gather the elders

And all the inhabitants of the land

To the house of the Lord your God,

And cry out to the Lord.

15Alas for the day!

For the day of the Lord is near,

And it will come as destruction from the Almighty.

16Has not food been cut off before our eyes,

Gladness and joy from the house of our God?

17The seeds shrivel under their clods;

The storehouses are desolate,

The barns are torn down,

For the grain is dried up.

18How the beasts groan!

The herds of cattle wander aimlessly

Because there is no pasture for them;

Even the flocks of sheep suffer.

19To You, O Lord, I cry;

For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness

And the flame has burned up all the trees of the field.

20Even the beasts of the field pant for You;

For the water brooks are dried up

And fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.