They rush upon the city; they run along the wall. They climb into the houses; like thieves they enter through the windows.

Before them the earth shakes, the heavens tremble, the sun and moon are darkened, and the stars no longer shine.

The class="small-caps" >Lord thunders at the head of his army; his forces are beyond number, and mighty is the army that obeys his command. The day of the class="small-caps" >Lord is great; it is dreadful. Who can endure it?

Rend Your Heart

“Even now,” declares the class="small-caps" >Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.”

Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the class="small-caps" >Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.

Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave behind a blessing— grain offerings and drink offerings for the class="small-caps" >Lord your God.

Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly.

Gather the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children, those nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber.

Let the priests, who minister before the class="small-caps" >Lord, weep between the portico and the altar. Let them say, “Spare your people, class="small-caps" >Lord. Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”

The class="small-caps" >Lord replied to them: “I am sending you grain, new wine and olive oil, enough to satisfy you fully; never again will I make you an object of scorn to the nations.

“I will drive the northern horde far from you, pushing it into a parched and barren land; its eastern ranks will drown in the Dead Sea and its western ranks in the Mediterranean Sea. And its stench will go up; its smell will rise.” Surely he has done great things!

Do not be afraid, land of Judah; be glad and rejoice. Surely the class="small-caps" >Lord has done great things!

Do not be afraid, you wild animals, for the pastures in the wilderness are becoming green. The trees are bearing their fruit; the fig tree and the vine yield their riches.

Be glad, people of Zion, rejoice in the class="small-caps" >Lord your God, for he has given you the autumn rains because he is faithful. He sends you abundant showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before.

The threshing floors will be filled with grain; the vats will overflow with new wine and oil.

“I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten— the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm— my great army that I sent among you.

You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the class="small-caps" >Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed.

Then you will know that I am in Israel, that I am the class="small-caps" >Lord your God, and that there is no other; never again will my people be shamed.

Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.

I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke.

The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the class="small-caps" >Lord.

And everyone who calls on the name of the class="small-caps" >Lord will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the class="small-caps" >Lord has said, even among the survivors whom the class="small-caps" >Lord calls.

I will gather all nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. There I will put them on trial for what they did to my inheritance, my people Israel, because they scattered my people among the nations and divided up my land.

They cast lots for my people and traded boys for prostitutes; they sold girls for wine to drink.

“Now what have you against me, Tyre and Sidon and all you regions of Philistia? Are you repaying me for something I have done? If you are paying me back, I will swiftly and speedily return on your own heads what you have done.