| Chapter 3 |
1 | For behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall turn again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, |
2 | I will also gather all the nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and I will enter into judgment with them there on account of my people and mine inheritance, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations: and they have parted my land; |
3 | and they have cast lots for my people, and have given a boy for a harlot, and sold a girl for wine, and have drunk [it]. |
4 | Yea also, what have ye to do with me, O Tyre and Zidon, and all the districts of Philistia? Will ye render me a recompence? But if ye recompense me, swiftly [and] speedily will I bring your recompence upon your own head; |
5 | because ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my beautiful pleasant things, |
6 | and the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the children of the Greeks, that ye might remove them far from their border. |
7 | Behold, I will raise them up out of the place whither ye have sold them, and will bring your recompence upon your own head. |
8 | And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a nation far off: for Jehovah hath spoken. |
9 | Proclaim this among the nations: prepare war, arouse the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near, let them come up. |
10 | Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your pruning-knives into spears; let the weak say, I am strong. |
11 | Haste ye and come, all ye nations round about, and gather yourselves together. Thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Jehovah. |
12 | Let the nations rouse themselves, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat; for there will I sit to judge all the nations round about. |
13 | Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down, for the press is full, the vats overflow; for their wickedness is great. |
14 | Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of Jehovah is at hand in the valley of decision. |
15 | The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. |
16 | And Jehovah will roar from Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: and Jehovah will be a shelter for his people, and the refuge of the children of Israel. |
17 | And ye shall know that I, Jehovah, [am] your God, dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain; and Jerusalem shall be holy, and no strangers shall pass through her any more. |
18 | And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the water-courses of Judah shall flow with waters; and a fountain shall come forth from the house of Jehovah, and shall water the valley of Shittim. |
19 | Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness, for the violence against the children of Judah, in that they have shed innocent blood in their land. |
20 | But Judah shall abide for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation. |
21 | And I will purge them from the blood from which I had not purged them: for Jehovah dwelleth in Zion. |