¹ 'For in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem,

² I shall gather all the nations together and take them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; there I shall put them on trial because of Israel, my people and my heritage, for having scattered them among the nations and having divided my land among themselves.

³ They drew lots for my people, bartering a boy for a whore and selling a girl for wine to drink.

⁴ 'And what are you to me, Tyre and Sidon and all you regions of Philistia? Can you take revenge on me? If you take revenge on me, I shall quickly, instantly, make your revenge recoil on your own heads

⁵ for having taken my silver and gold away and carried off my valuable treasures to your temples,

⁶ and for having sold the children of Judah and Jerusalem to the Ionians, to be taken far away from their own frontiers.

⁷ Look, I shall rouse them from the places to which you have sold them; I shall make your actions recoil on your own heads

⁸ by selling your sons and daughters to the sons of Judah, who in turn will sell them to the Sabaeans, to a nation far away- Yahweh has spoken!'

⁹ Proclaim this among the nations. Prepare for war! Rouse the champions! All you troops, advance, march!

¹⁰ Hammer your ploughshares into swords, your bill-hooks into spears; let the weakling say, 'I am tough!'

¹¹ Hurry and come, all the nations around, and assemble there! (Yahweh, send down your champions!)

¹² 'Let the nations rouse themselves and march to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, for there I shall sit in judgement on all the nations around.

¹³ Ply the sickle, for the harvest is ripe; come and tread, for the winepress is full; the vats are overflowing, so great is their wickedness!'

¹⁴ Multitude on multitude in the Valley of Decision! For the Day of Yahweh is near in the Valley of the Verdict!

¹⁵ Sun and moon grow dark, the stars lose their brilliance.

¹⁶ Yahweh roars from Zion, he thunders from Jerusalem; heaven and earth tremble. But Yahweh will be a shelter for his people, a stronghold for the Israelites.

¹⁷ 'Then you will know that I am Yahweh your God residing on Zion, my holy mountain. Jerusalem will then be a sanctuary, no foreigners will overrun it ever again.'

¹⁸ When that Day comes, the mountains will run with new wine and the hills will flow with milk, and all the stream-beds of Judah will run with water. A fountain will spring from Yahweh's Temple and water the Gorge of the Acacias.

¹⁹ Egypt will become a desolation, and Edom a desert waste on account of the violence done to the children of Judah whose innocent blood they shed in their country.

²⁰ But Judah will be inhabited for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation!

²¹ 'I shall avenge their blood and let none go unpunished,' and Yahweh will dwell in Zion.

Daily Readings   Daily readings of the Mass. 7 days/week. See Sample E-mail:    Select Gender Male Female    Zip Code:

The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) is a Catholic translation of the Bible published in 1985. The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) has become the most widely used Roman Catholic Bible outside of the United States. It has the imprimatur of Cardinal George Basil Hume.

Like its predecessor, the Jerusalem Bible, the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) version is translated "directly from the Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic." The 1973 French translation, the Bible de Jerusalem, is followed only "where the text admits to more than one interpretation." Introductions and notes, with some modifications, are taken from the Bible de Jerusalem.

Source: The Very Reverend Dom (Joseph) Henry Wansbrough, OSB, MA (Oxon), STL (Fribourg), LSS (Rome), a monk of Ampleforth Abbey and a biblical scholar. He was General Editor of the New Jerusalem Bible. "New Jerusalem Bible, Regular Edition", pg. v.

Ten Commandments | Books of the Bible | Buy a Bible

Old Testament »

New Testament »