Joel 3:1-8

1 "In those days and at that time, when I will make things better for Judah and Jerusalem,

2 I will gather all the nations together and bring them down into the Valley Where the Lord Judges. There I will judge them, because those nations scattered my own people Israel and forced them to live in other nations. They divided up my land

3 and threw lots for my people. They traded boys for prostitutes, and they sold girls to buy wine to drink.

4 "Tyre and Sidon and all of you regions of Philistia! What did you have against me? Were you punishing me for something I did, or were you doing something to hurt me? I will very quickly do to you what you have done to me.

5 You took my silver and gold, and you put my precious treasures in your temples.

6 You sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks so that you could send them far from their land.

7 "You sent my people to that faraway place, but I will get them and bring them back, and I will do to you what you have done to them.

8 I will sell your sons and daughters to the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabean people far away." The Lord said this.

Joel 3:1-8 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JOEL 3

This chapter, which some make the fourth, contains a prophecy of God's judgments on all the antichristian nations at the time of the Jews' conversion, and the reasons of them, Joe 3:1-3; a threatening of Tyre and Zidon, by way of retaliation, for carrying the riches of the Jews into their temples, and selling their persons to the Greeks, Joe 3:4-8; an alarm to prepare for the battle of Armageddon, or the destruction that shall be made in the valley of Jehoshaphat, Joe 3:9-15; and after that an account of the happy state of the church of Christ, their safety and security, plenty, prosperity, and purity, to the end of the world, Joe 3:16-21.