The Day of the Lord

Joel 2

1 j Blow a trumpet in k Zion;
sound an alarm on k my holy mountain!
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,
for l the day of the Lord is coming; it is near,
 2 m a day of darkness and gloom,
m a day of clouds and thick darkness!
Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains
n a great and powerful people;
o their like has never been before,
nor will be again after them
through the years of all generations.

3 p Fire devours before them,
and behind them a flame burns.
The land is like q the garden of Eden before them,
but r behind them a desolate wilderness,
and nothing escapes them.

4 s Their appearance is like the appearance of horses,
and like war horses they run.
 5 t As with the rumbling of chariots,
they leap on the tops of the mountains,
like the crackling of u a flame of fire
devouring the stubble,
n like a powerful army
drawn up for battle.

6 Before them peoples are in anguish;
v all faces grow pale.
 7 Like warriors they charge;
like soldiers they scale the wall.
They march each on his way;
they do not swerve from their paths.
 8 They do not jostle one another;
w each marches in his path;
they burst through the weapons
and are not halted.
 9 x They leap upon the city,
they run upon the walls,
y they climb up into the houses,
y they enter through the windows z like a thief.

10 a The earth quakes before them;
the heavens tremble.
b The sun and the moon are darkened,
and the stars withdraw their shining.
 11 c The Lord utters his voice
before d his army,
for his camp is exceedingly great;
e he who executes his word is powerful.
f For the day of the Lord is g great and very awesome;
h who can endure it?

  1. Cross References
    Joel 2:15
    Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly.
    Isaiah 58:1
    Cry aloud; do not hold back; lift up your voice like a trumpet; declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins.
    Hosea 5:8
    Blow the horn in Gibeah, the trumpet in Ramah. Sound the alarm at Beth-aven; we follow you, O Benjamin!
    Amos 3:6
    Is a trumpet blown in a city, and the people are not afraid? Does disaster come to a city, unless the Lord has done it?
  2. Cross References
    Joel 3:17
    So you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who dwells in Zion, my holy mountain. And Jerusalem shall be holy, and strangers shall never again pass through it.
  3. Cross References
    Joel 3:17
    So you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who dwells in Zion, my holy mountain. And Jerusalem shall be holy, and strangers shall never again pass through it.
  4. Cross References
    Joel 1:15
    Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is near, and as destruction from the Almighty it comes.
  5. Cross References
    Amos 5:18
    Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! Why would you have the day of the Lord ? It is darkness, and not light.
    Amos 5:20
    Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?
    Zephaniah 1:15
    A day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness.
  6. Cross References
    Amos 5:18
    Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! Why would you have the day of the Lord ? It is darkness, and not light.
    Amos 5:20
    Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?
    Zephaniah 1:15
    A day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness.
  7. Cross References
    Joel 1:6
    For a nation has come up against my land, powerful and beyond number; its teeth are lions' teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness.
    Joel 2:11
    The Lord utters his voice before his army, for his camp is exceedingly great; he who executes his word is powerful. For the day of the Lord is great and very awesome; who can endure it?
    Joel 2:25
    I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you.
  8. Cross References
    Joel 1:2
    Hear this, you elders; give ear, all inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers?
  9. Cross References
    Joel 1:19 - 20
    To you, O Lord, I call. For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and flame has burned all the trees of the field.
  10. Cross References
    Genesis 2:8 - 9
    And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.
    Isaiah 51:3
    For the Lord comforts Zion; he comforts all her waste places and makes her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord ; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song.
  11. Cross References
    Zechariah 7:14
    "and I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known. Thus the land they left was desolate, so that no one went to and fro, and the pleasant land was made desolate."
  12. Cross References
    Revelation 9:7
    In appearance the locusts were like horses prepared for battle: on their heads were what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were like human faces.
  13. Cross References
    Revelation 9:9
    They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing into battle.
    Nahum 3:2
    The crack of the whip, and rumble of the wheel, galloping horse and bounding chariot!
  14. Cross References
    Isaiah 5:24
    Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root will be as rottenness, and their blossom go up like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts, and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
    Isaiah 47:14
    Behold, they are like stubble; the fire consumes them; they cannot deliver themselves from the power of the flame. No coal for warming oneself is this, no fire to sit before!
    Obadiah 1:18
    The house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau stubble; they shall burn them and consume them, and there shall be no survivor for the house of Esau, for the Lord has spoken.
    Nahum 1:10
    For they are like entangled thorns, like drunkards as they drink; they are consumed like stubble fully dried.
  15. Cross References
    Joel 2:2
    A day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains a great and powerful people; their like has never been before, nor will be again after them through the years of all generations.
  16. Cross References
    Nahum 2:10
    Desolate! Desolation and ruin! Hearts melt and knees tremble; anguish is in all loins; all faces grow pale!
  17. Cross References
    Proverbs 30:27
    The locusts have no king, yet all of them march in rank.
  18. Cross References
    Isaiah 33:4
    And your spoil is gathered as the caterpillar gathers; as locusts leap, it is leapt upon.
  19. Cross References
    Jeremiah 9:21
    For death has come up into our windows; it has entered our palaces, cutting off the children from the streets and the young men from the squares.
  20. Cross References
    Jeremiah 9:21
    For death has come up into our windows; it has entered our palaces, cutting off the children from the streets and the young men from the squares.
  21. Cross References
    John 10:1
    Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber.
  22. Cross References
    Joel 3:16
    The Lord roars from Zion, and utters his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth quake. But the Lord is a refuge to his people, a stronghold to the people of Israel.
    Psalms 18:7
    Then the earth reeled and rocked; the foundations also of the mountains trembled and quaked, because he was angry.
    Amos 8:8
    Shall not the land tremble on this account, and everyone mourn who dwells in it, and all of it rise like the Nile, and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?
  23. Cross References
    Joel 3:15
    The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining.
    Isaiah 13:10
    For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light.
    Ezekiel 32:7
    When I blot you out, I will cover the heavens and make their stars dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give its light.
    Matthew 24:29
    Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
    Revelation 9:2
    He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft.
  24. Cross References
    Joel 3:16
    The Lord roars from Zion, and utters his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth quake. But the Lord is a refuge to his people, a stronghold to the people of Israel.
    1 Thessalonians 4:16
    For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.
  25. Cross References
    Joel 2:25
    I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you.
  26. Cross References
    Revelation 18:8
    For this reason her plagues will come in a single day, death and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for mighty is the Lord God who has judged her.
  27. Cross References
    Joel 1:15
    Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is near, and as destruction from the Almighty it comes.
  28. Cross References
    Joel 2:31
    The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.
  29. Cross References
    Malachi 3:2
    But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap.
    Numbers 24:23
    And he took up his discourse and said, "Alas, who shall live when God does this?
English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.
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