3:1. For behold in those days, and in that time when I shall bring back
the captivity of Juda, and Jerusalem:
3:2. I will gather together all nations and will bring them down into
the valley of Josaphat: and I will plead with them there for my people,
and for my inheritance, Israel, whom they have scattered among the
nations, and have parted my land.
3:3. And they have cast lots upon my people: and the boy they have put
in the stews, and the girl they have sold for wine, that they might
drink.
3:4. But what have you to do with me, O Tyre, and Sidon, and all the
coast of the Philistines? will you revenge yourselves on me? and if you
revenge yourselves on me, I will very soon return you a recompense upon
your own head.
3:5. For you have taken away my silver, and my gold: and my desirable,
and most beautiful things you have carried into your temples.
3:6. And the children of Juda, and the children of Jerusalem, you have
sold to the children of the Greeks, that you might remove them far off
from their own country.
3:7. Behold, I will raise them up out of the place wherein you have
sold them: and I will return your recompense upon your own heads.
3:8. And I will sell your sons, and your daughters, by the hands of the
children of Juda, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, a nation far
off, for the Lord hath spoken it.
3:9. Proclaim ye this among the nations: Prepare war, rouse up the
strong: let them come, let all the men of war come up.
3:10. Cut your ploughshares into swords, and your spades into spears.
Let the weak say: I am strong.
3:11. Break forth, and come, all ye nations from round about, and
gather yourselves together: there will the Lord cause all thy strong
ones to fall down.
3:12. Let them arise, and let the nations come up into the valley of
Josaphat: for there I will sit to judge all nations round about.
3:13. Put ye in the sickles, for the harvest is ripe: come and go down,
for the press is full, the fats run over: for their wickedness is
multiplied.
3:14. Nations, nations in the valley of destruction: for the day of the
Lord is near in the valley of destruction.
3:15. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars have withdrawn
their shining.
3:16. And the Lord shall roar out of Sion, and utter his voice from
Jerusalem: and the heavens and the earth shall be moved, and the Lord
shall be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of
Israel.
3:17. And you shall know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Sion,
my holy mountain: and Jerusalem shall be holy, and strangers shall pass
through it no more.
3:18. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall
drop down sweetness, and the hills shall flow with milk: and waters
shall flow through all the rivers of Juda: and a fountain shall come
forth of the house of the Lord, and shall water the torrent of thorns.
A fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord, etc.... Viz., the
fountain of grace in the church militant, and of glory in the church
triumphant: which shall water the torrent or valley of thorns, that is,
the souls that before, like barren ground brought forth nothing but
thorns; or that were afflicted with the thorns of crosses and
tribulations.
3:19. Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom a wilderness destroyed:
because they have done unjustly against the children of Juda, and have
shed innocent blood in their land.
3:20. And Judea shall be inhabited for ever, and Jerusalem to
generation and generation.
Judea—and Jerusalem.... That is, the spiritual Jerusalem, viz., the
church of Christ.
3:21. And I will cleanse their blood, which I had not cleansed: and the
Lord will dwell in Sion.