הָיָה

This is the word of the LORD that came to Joel son of Pethuel:

Hear this, O elders; and give ear, all who dwell in the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your fathers?

…a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness. Like the dawn overspreading the mountains a great and strong army appears, such as never was of old, nor will ever be in ages to come.

Before them a fire devours, and behind them a flame scorches. The land before them is like the Garden of Eden, but behind them, it is like a desert wasteland—surely nothing will escape them.

And afterward, I will pour out My Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.

And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the LORD has promised, among the remnant called by the LORD.

Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who dwells in Zion, My holy mountain. Jerusalem will be holy, never again to be overrun by foreigners.

And in that day the mountains will drip with sweet wine, and the hills will flow with milk. All the streams of Judah will run with water, and a spring will flow from the house of the LORD to water the Valley of Acacias.

Egypt will become desolate, and Edom a desert wasteland, because of the violence done to the people of Judah, in whose land they shed innocent blood.

These are the words of Amos, who was among the sheepherders of Tekoa—what he saw concerning Israel two years before the earthquake, in the days when Uzziah was king of Judah and Jeroboam son of Jehoash was king of Israel.

If a ram’s horn sounds in a city, do the people not tremble? If calamity comes to a city, has not the LORD caused it?

“Some of you I overthrew as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a firebrand snatched from a blaze, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.

Do not seek Bethel or go to Gilgal; do not journey to Beersheba, for Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel will come to nothing.

Seek good, not evil, so that you may live. And the LORD, the God of Hosts, will be with you, as you have claimed.

And if there are ten men left in one house, they too will die.

And when the locusts had eaten every green plant in the land, I said, “Lord GOD, please forgive! How will Jacob survive, since he is so small?”

So the LORD relented from this plan. “It will not happen,” He said.

So the LORD relented from this plan. “It will not happen either,” said the Lord GOD.

And in that day, declares the Lord GOD, I will make the sun go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the daytime.

For as you drank on My holy mountain, so all the nations will drink continually. They will drink and gulp it down; they will be as if they had never existed.

But on Mount Zion there will be deliverance, and it will be holy, and the house of Jacob will reclaim their possession.

Then the house of Jacob will be a blazing fire, and the house of Joseph a burning flame; but the house of Esau will be stubble—Jacob will set it ablaze and consume it. Therefore no survivor will remain from the house of Esau.” For the LORD has spoken.

The deliverers will ascend Mount Zion to rule over the mountains of Esau. And the kingdom will belong to the LORD.

Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying,

Then the LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship was in danger of breaking apart.

Now the LORD had appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of the fish.

Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time:

This time Jonah got up and went to Nineveh, in accordance with the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, requiring a three-day journey.

So he prayed to the LORD, saying, “O LORD, is this not what I said while I was still in my own country? This is why I was so quick to flee toward Tarshish. I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion—One who relents from sending disaster.

Then Jonah left the city and sat down east of it, where he made himself a shelter and sat in its shade to see what would happen to the city.

So the LORD God appointed a vine, and it grew up to provide shade over Jonah’s head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was greatly pleased with the plant.

As the sun was rising, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint and wished to die, saying, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

But the LORD said, “You cared about the plant, which you neither tended nor made grow. It sprang up in a night and perished in a night.

This is the word of the LORD that came to Micah the Moreshite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah—what he saw regarding Samaria and Jerusalem:

Hear, O peoples, all of you; listen, O earth, and everyone in it! May the Lord GOD bear witness against you, the Lord from His holy temple.

In that day they will take up a proverb against you and taunt you with this bitter lamentation: ‘We are utterly ruined! He has changed the portion of my people. How He has removed it from me! He has allotted our fields to traitors.’”

Therefore, you will have no one in the assembly of the LORD to divide the land by lot.

If a man of wind were to come and say falsely, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,” he would be just the preacher for this people!

Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, and the temple mount a wooded ridge.

In the last days the mountain of the house of the LORD will be established as the chief of the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and the peoples will stream to it.

But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come forth for Me One to be ruler over Israel—One whose origins are of old, from the days of eternity.

And He will be our peace when Assyria invades our land and tramples our citadels. We will raise against it seven shepherds, even eight leaders of men.

Then the remnant of Jacob will be in the midst of many peoples like dew from the LORD, like showers on the grass, which do not wait for man or linger for mankind.