Joel 2:2

2:2 It will be a day of dreadful darkness,

a day of foreboding storm clouds,

like blackness spread over the mountains.

It is a huge and powerful army –

there has never been anything like it ever before,

and there will not be anything like it for many generations to come!

Joel 2:13

2:13 Return to the Lord your God,

for he is merciful and compassionate,

slow to anger and boundless in loyal love – often relenting from calamitous punishment.

2:17 Let the priests, those who serve the Lord, weep

from the vestibule all the way back to the altar.

Let them say, “Have pity, O Lord, on your people;

please do not turn over your inheritance to be mocked,

to become a proverb among the nations.

Why should it be said among the peoples,

“Where is their God?”

An Outpouring of the Spirit

2:28 (3:1) After all of this

I will pour out my Spirit on all kinds of people.

Your sons and daughters will prophesy.

Your elderly will have revelatory dreams;

your young men will see prophetic visions.

3:2 Then I will gather all the nations,

and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat.

I will enter into judgment against them there

concerning my people Israel who are my inheritance,

whom they scattered among the nations.

They partitioned my land,