Joel 1:13-15
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
Cry Out to the Lord
13 [a]Gird yourselves and lament, you priests!
wail, ministers of the altar!
Come, spend the night in sackcloth,
ministers of my God!
For the grain offering and the libation
are withheld from the house of your God.(A)
14 Proclaim a holy fast!
Call an assembly!
Gather the elders,
all who dwell in the land,
To the house of the Lord, your God,
and cry out to the Lord!(B)
15 O! The day![b]
For near is the day of the Lord,
like destruction from the Almighty it is coming!(C)
Footnotes
- 1:13 Judah’s situation is so grave and the day of the Lord so imminent that priests must lament day and night if they hope to reverse the divine punishment.
- 1:15 As in Am 5:18–20, the day of the Lord in Joel’s first speech brings punishment, not victory, for Judah. In his second speech, this event means victory for those faithful to the Lord and death for the nations who are the Lord’s enemies. Almighty: Hebrew shaddai. There is wordplay between shod (“destruction”) and shaddai.
Joel 2:1-2
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
II. The Day of the Lord
Chapter 2
The Day Approaches
1 [a]Blow the horn in Zion,
sound the alarm on my holy mountain!
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,
for the day of the Lord is coming!(A)
Yes, it approaches,
2 a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of thick clouds!
Like dawn[b] spreading over the mountains,
a vast and mighty army!
Nothing like it has ever happened in ages past,
nor will the future hold anything like it,
even to the most distant generations.(B)
Footnotes
- 2:1–11 Joel warns the people about the destruction he sees galloping toward Jerusalem. He combines the imagery of the locust invasion (chap. 1) with language from the holy war tradition in order to describe the Lord leading a heavenly army against the enemy, in this case, Jerusalem.
- 2:2 Like dawn: from the east comes dark destruction rather than a new day’s light.
Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.