OUR MERCIFUL GOD! JOEL 2

Who knows but what He will turn, revoke your sentence [of evil], and leave a blessing behind Him [giving you the means with which to serve Him], even a cereal or meal offering and a drink offering for the Lord, your God?
   
Blow the trumpet in Zion; set apart a fast [a day of restraint and humility]; call a solemn assembly.
   
Gather the people, sanctify the congregation; assemble the elderly people, gather the children and the nursing infants; let the bridegroom [who is legally exempt from attending] go forth from his chamber and the bride out of her closet. [None is exempt from the humiliation.]
   
Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar; and let them say, Have pity and spare Your people, O Lord, and give not Your heritage to reproach, that the [heathen] nations should rule over them or use a byword against them. Why should they say among the peoples, Where is their God?
   
Then was the Lord jealous for His land and had pity on His people.
   
Yes, the Lord answered and said to His people, Behold, I am sending you grain and juice [of the grape] and oil, and you shall be satisfied with them; and I will no more make you a reproach among the [heathen] nations.
   
But I will remove far off from you the northern [destroyer's] army and will drive it into a land barren and desolate, with its front toward the eastern [Dead] Sea and with its rear toward the western [Mediterranean] Sea. And its stench shall come up [like that of a decaying mass of locusts, a symbol and forecast of the fate of the northern army in the final day of the Lord], and its foul odor shall come up, because ^[a]He has done great things [the Lord will have destroyed the invaders]!^(E)
  
Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things!
   
Be not afraid, you wild beasts of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness have sprung up and are green; the tree bears its fruit, and the fig tree and the vine yield their [full] strength.
   
Be glad then, you children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord, your God; for He gives you the former or early rain in just measure and in righteousness, and He causes to come down for you the rain, the former rain and the latter rain, as before.
   
And the [threshing] floors shall be full of grain and the vats shall overflow with juice [of the grape] and oil.
   
And I will restore or replace for you the years that the locust has eaten--the hopping locust, the stripping locust, and the crawling locust, My great army which I sent among you.
  
And you shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord, your God, Who has dealt wondrously with you. And My people shall never be put to shame.