Chapter 3

¹ For, behold, in those days and at that time, when I shall have turned the captivity of Juda and Jerusalem, ² I will also gather all the ¹Gentiles, and bring them down to the valley of Josaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and my heritage Israel, who have been dispersed among the Gentiles; and these Gentiles have divided my land, ³ and cast lots over my people, and have given their boys to harlots, and sold their girls for wine, and have drunk.

⁴ And what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Sidon, and all Galilee of the ²Gentiles? do ye render me a recompense? or do ye bear malice against me? quickly and speedily will I return your recompense on your own heads: ⁵ because ye have taken my silver and my gold, and ye have brought my choice ornaments into your temples; ⁶ and ye have sold the children of Juda and the children of Jerusalem to the children of the Greeks, that ye might expel them from their coasts. ⁷ Therefore, behold, I will raise them up out of the place whither ye have sold them, and I will return your recompense on your own heads. ⁸ And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hands of the children of Juda, and they shall sell them into captivity to a far distant nation: for the Lord has spoken it.

⁹ Proclaim these things among the Gentiles; ³declare war, arouse the warriors, draw near and go up, all ye men of war.

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¹⁰ Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your sickles into ⁴spears: let the weak say, I am strong. ¹¹ Gather yourselves together, and go in, all ye nations round about, and gather yourselves there; let the ⁵timid become a warrior. ¹² Let them be aroused, let all the nations go up to the valley of Josaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the Gentiles round about.

¹³ Bring forth the sickles, for the vintage is come: go in, tread the grapes, for the press is full: cause the vats to overflow; for their wickedness is multiplied. ¹⁴ Noises have resounded in the valley of judgment: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of judgment. ¹⁵ The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their light.

¹⁶ And the Lord shall cry out of Sion, and shall utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heaven and the earth shall be shaken, but the Lord shall spare his people, and shall strengthen the children of Israel. ¹⁷ And ye shall know that I am the Lord your God, who dwell in Sion my holy mountain: and Jerusalem shall be holy, and strangers shall not pass through her anymore.

¹⁸ And it shall come to pass in that day that the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the ⁶fountains of Juda shall flow with water, and a fountain shall go forth of the house of the Lord, and water the valley of flags.

¹⁹ Egypt shall be a desolation, and Idumea shall be a desolate plain, because of the wrongs of the children of Juda, because they have shed righteous blood in their land. ²⁰ But Judea shall be inhabited for ever, and Jerusalem to all generations. ²¹ And I will make inquisition for their blood, and will by no means leave it unavenged: and the Lord shall dwell in Sion.