Joel 3:3-7

Context

3:3 and they cast lots for my people.

They traded¹ a boy for a prostitute;

they sold a little girl for wine so they could drink.²

3:4 Why are you doing these things to me, Tyre and Sidon?³

Are you trying to get even with me, land of Philistia?⁴

I will very quickly repay you for what you have done!⁵

3:5 For you took my silver and my gold

and brought my precious valuables to your own palaces.⁶

3:6 You sold Judeans and Jerusalemites to the Greeks,

removing them far from their own country.⁷

3:7 Look! I am rousing them from that place to which you sold them.

I will repay you for what you have done!⁸

[3:3] ¹tn Heb “gave.”

[3:3] ²sn Heb “and they drank.” Joel vividly refers to a situation where innocent human life has little value; its only worth is its use in somehow satisfying selfish appetites of wicked people who have control over others (cf. Amos 2:6 and 8:6).

[3:4] ³tn Heb “What [are] you [doing] to me, O Tyre and Sidon?”

[3:4] ⁴tn Or “districts.”

[3:4] ⁵tn Heb “quickly, speedily, I will return your recompense on your head.” This is an idiom for retributive justice and an equitable reversal of situation.

[3:5] ⁶tn Or perhaps, “temples.”

[3:6] ⁷tn Heb “border.”

[3:7] ⁸tn Heb “I will return your recompense on your head.”