Joel 3:19

¹The burden of Egypt. “Behold, the LORD rides on a swift cloud, and comes to Egypt. The idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence; and the heart of Egypt will melt within it.

²I will stir up the Egyptians against the Egyptians, and they will fight everyone against his brother, and everyone against his neighbor; city against city, and kingdom against kingdom. ³The spirit of the Egyptians will fail within them. I will destroy their counsel. They will seek the idols, the charmers, those who have familiar spirits, and the wizards. ⁴I will give over the Egyptians into the hand of a cruel lord. A fierce king will rule over them,” says the Lord, GOD ^[+] of Armies.

⁵The waters will fail from the sea, and the river will be wasted and become dry. ⁶The rivers will become foul. The streams of Egypt will be diminished and dried up. The reeds and flags will wither away. ⁷The meadows by the Nile, by the brink of the Nile, and all the sown fields of the Nile, will become dry, be driven away, and be no more. ⁸The fishermen will lament, and all those who fish in the Nile will mourn, and those who spread nets on the waters will languish. ⁹Moreover those who work in combed flax, and those who weave white cloth, will be confounded. ¹⁰The pillars will be broken in pieces. All those who work for hire will be grieved in soul.

¹¹The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish. The counsel of the wisest counselors of Pharaoh has become stupid. How do you say to Pharaoh, “I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings”? ¹²Where then are your wise men? Let them tell you now; and let them know what the LORD of Armies has purposed concerning Egypt. ¹³The princes of Zoan have become fools. The princes of Memphis are deceived. They have caused Egypt to go astray, those who are the cornerstone of her tribes. ¹⁴The LORD has mixed a spirit of perverseness in the middle of her; and they have caused Egypt to go astray in all of its works, like a drunken man staggers in his vomit. ¹⁵Neither shall there be any work for Egypt, which head or tail, palm branch or rush, may do.

¹⁸If the family of Egypt doesn’t go up and doesn’t come, neither will it rain on them. This will be the plague with which the LORD will strike the nations that don’t go up to keep the feast of booths. ¹⁹This will be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that don’t go up to keep the feast of booths.

³⁵May the violence done to me and to my flesh be on Babylon!” the inhabitant of Zion will say; and, “May my blood be on the inhabitants of Chaldea!” will Jerusalem say.

²¹Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Edom, who dwells in the land of Uz. The cup will pass through to you also. You will be drunken, and will make yourself naked.

¹Come near, you nations, to hear! Listen, you peoples. Let the earth and all it contains hear, the world, and everything that comes from it. ²For the LORD is enraged against all the nations, and angry with all their armies. He has utterly destroyed them. He has given them over for slaughter. ³Their slain will also be cast out, and the stench of their dead bodies will come up. The mountains will melt in their blood. ⁴All of the army of the sky will be dissolved. The sky will be rolled up like a scroll, and all its armies will fade away, as a leaf fades from off a vine or a fig tree. ⁵For my sword has drunk its fill in the sky. Behold, it will come down on Edom, and on the people of my curse, for judgment. ⁶The LORD’s sword is filled with blood. It is covered with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams; for the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Edom. ⁷The wild oxen will come down with them, and the young bulls with the mighty bulls; and their land will be drunken with blood, and their dust made greasy with fat. ⁸For the LORD has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion. ⁹Its streams will be turned into pitch, its dust into sulfur, and its land will become burning pitch. ¹⁰It won’t be quenched night or day. Its smoke will go up forever. From generation to generation, it will lie waste. No one will pass through it forever and ever. ¹¹But the pelican and the porcupine will possess it. The owl and the raven will dwell in it. He will stretch the line of confusion over it, and the plumb line of emptiness. ¹²They shall call its nobles to the kingdom, but none shall be there; and all its princes shall be nothing. ¹³Thorns will come up in its palaces, nettles and thistles in its fortresses; and it will be a habitation of jackals, a court for ostriches. ¹⁴The wild animals of the desert will meet with the wolves, and the wild goat will cry to his fellow. Yes, the night creature^[+] shall settle there, and shall find herself a place of rest. ¹⁵The arrow snake will make her nest there, and lay, hatch, and gather under her shade. Yes, the kites will be gathered there, every one with her mate. ¹⁶Search in the book of the LORD, and read: not one of these will be missing. None will lack her mate. For my mouth has commanded, and his Spirit has gathered them. ¹⁷He has cast the lot for them, and his hand has divided it to them with a measuring line. They shall possess it forever. From generation to generation they will dwell in it.

¹¹The LORD says: “For three transgressions of Edom, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment, because he pursued his brother with the sword and cast off all pity, and his anger raged continually, and he kept his wrath forever; ¹²but I will send a fire on Teman, and it will devour the palaces of Bozrah.”

¹⁵The LORD will utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea; and with his scorching wind he will wave his hand over the River, and will split it into seven streams, and cause men to march over in sandals.

¹⁰For the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame will cover you, and you will be cut off forever. ¹¹In the day that you stood on the other side, in the day that strangers carried away his substance and foreigners entered into his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem, even you were like one of them. ¹²But don’t look down on your brother in the day of his disaster, and don’t rejoice over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction. Don’t speak proudly in the day of distress. ¹³Don’t enter into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity. Don’t look down on their affliction in the day of their calamity, neither seize their wealth on the day of their calamity. ¹⁴Don’t stand in the crossroads to cut off those of his who escape. Don’t deliver up those of his who remain in the day of distress. ¹⁵For the day of the LORD is near all the nations! As you have done, it will be done to you. Your deeds will return upon your own head. ¹⁶For as you have drunk on my holy mountain, so all the nations will drink continually. Yes, they will drink, swallow down, and will be as though they had not been.

¹Moreover the LORD’s word came to me, saying, ²“Son of man, set your face against Mount Seir, and prophesy against it, ³and tell it, ‘The Lord GOD says: “Behold, I am against you, Mount Seir, and I will stretch out my hand against you. I will make you a desolation and an astonishment. ⁴I will lay your cities waste, and you will be desolate. Then you will know that I am the LORD.

⁵“‘“Because you have had a perpetual hostility, and have given over the children of Israel to the power of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time of the iniquity of the end, ⁶therefore, as I live,” says the Lord GOD, “I will prepare you for blood, and blood will pursue you. Since you have not hated blood, therefore blood will pursue you. ⁷Thus I will make Mount Seir an astonishment and a desolation. I will cut off from it him who passes through and him who returns. ⁸I will fill its mountains with its slain. The slain with the sword will fall in your hills and in your valleys and in all your watercourses. ⁹I will make you a perpetual desolation, and your cities will not be inhabited. Then you will know that I am the LORD.

¹⁰“‘“Because you have said, ‘These two nations and these two countries will be mine, and we will possess it,’ although the LORD was there, ¹¹therefore, as I live,” says the Lord GOD, “I will do according to your anger, and according to your envy which you have shown out of your hatred against them; and I will make myself known among them when I judge you. ¹²You will know that I, the LORD, have heard all your insults which you have spoken against the mountains of Israel, saying, ‘They have been laid desolate. They have been given to us to devour.’ ¹³You have magnified yourselves against me with your mouth, and have multiplied your words against me. I have heard it.” ¹⁴The Lord GOD says: “When the whole earth rejoices, I will make you desolate. ¹⁵As you rejoiced over the inheritance of the house of Israel because it was desolate, so I will do to you. You will be desolate, Mount Seir, and all Edom, even all of it. Then they will know that I am the LORD.’”

¹Who is this who comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? Who is this who is glorious in his clothing, marching in the greatness of his strength? “It is I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save.” ²Why is your clothing red, and your garments like him who treads in the wine vat? ³“I have trodden the wine press alone. Of the peoples, no one was with me. Yes, I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath. Their lifeblood is sprinkled on my garments, and I have stained all my clothing. ⁴For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year of my redeemed has come. ⁵I looked, and there was no one to help; and I wondered that there was no one to uphold. Therefore my own arm brought salvation to me. My own wrath upheld me. ⁶I trod down the peoples in my anger and made them drunk in my wrath. I poured their lifeblood out on the earth.”