Joel 2 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

Blow the ram's horn in Zion. Sound the alarm on the mountain that belongs to me. Let everyone living in the land shake, because the day of Yahweh is coming. It is close.

A day of darkness and gloom, a day of cloud and heavy shadow. Like first light spilling across the mountains, a people, many and strong. There has never been anything like them, and there never will be again in all the years to come.

Fire eats in front of them and behind them a flame burns. The land ahead of them is like the garden of Eden. Behind them it is empty desert. Nothing gets away from them.

They look like horses, and they run like cavalry.

With a sound like chariots they leap over the mountaintops, like the crackle of a flame eating dry stalks, like a strong army lined up for battle.

Whole peoples twist in pain in front of them. Every face goes grey.

They run like fighting men. They go up a wall like soldiers. Each one keeps to his own line and none of them cuts across another.

Nobody shoves his brother. Each one goes down his own track. They burst through the weapons and are not broken.

They rush the city. They run along the wall. They climb up into the houses and come in through the windows like thieves.

The earth shakes in front of them, the sky trembles. Sun and moon go dark and the stars pull back their light.

Yahweh raises his voice at the head of his army, because his camp is very large and the one who carries out his word is strong. The day of Yahweh is great and frightening. Who can survive it?

Even now, Yahweh says, come back to me with your whole heart, with fasting and weeping and beating your chests.

Tear your hearts and not your clothes. Come back to Yahweh your God, because he is kind and full of mercy, slow to anger, overflowing with loyal love, and he changes his mind about doing harm.

Who knows? He may turn and change his mind and leave a gift behind him, grain to offer and wine to pour out for Yahweh your God.

Blow the ram's horn in Zion. Declare a fast, a day kept for God. Call a solemn assembly.

Gather the people. Set the meeting apart. Bring in the elders. Gather the children and the babies still nursing. Let the groom come out of his room and the bride out from under her canopy.

Between the entrance hall and the altar let the priests weep, the ones who serve Yahweh. Let them say: Spare your people, Yahweh. Do not hand what belongs to you over to be mocked, a joke told among the nations. Why should anyone out there ask, Where is their God?

Then Yahweh burned with jealousy for his land and felt for his people.

Yahweh answered his people: I am sending you grain and new wine and fresh oil, and you will have your fill of them, and I will not make you a joke among the nations again.

I will drive the one from the north far away from you and push him out into a dry and empty land, his front into the eastern sea and his back into the western sea. His stink will go up, the smell of his rotting, because of the size of what he has done.

Do not be afraid, ground. Be glad and celebrate, because Yahweh has done great things.

Do not be afraid, animals of the field, because the open pastures have turned green again, because the trees are carrying their fruit and the fig tree and the vine are giving everything they have.

Children of Zion, be glad. Celebrate in Yahweh your God, because he has given you the autumn rain in the right measure. He has poured the rains down on you, autumn rain and spring rain, the way he used to.

The threshing floors will be piled with grain and the vats will run over with new wine and fresh oil.

I will pay you back for the years the swarm ate, the hopper and the stripper and the shearer, my great army that I sent among you.

You will eat until you have had enough, and you will praise the name of Yahweh your God, who has treated you with such wonder. My people will never be put to shame again.

You will know that I am here in the middle of Israel, that I am Yahweh your God and there is no other. My people will never be put to shame again.

After that I will pour out my Breath on everyone. Your sons and daughters will speak for me, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.

Even on the slaves, the men and the women, in those days I will pour out my Breath.

I will put wonders in the sky and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke.

The sun will turn to darkness and the moon to blood before the day of Yahweh comes, the great and frightening day.

And everyone who calls on the name of Yahweh will be rescued, because on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be people who got out, as Yahweh said, and among the ones left alive will be those Yahweh calls.