Joel 1
1 The word of the LORD which came to Joel, the son of Pethuel.
2 Hear this, you elders! Pay attention, all you who dwell in the land! Has the like of this happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers?
3 Tell it to your children, and your children to their children, and their children to the next generation.
4 What the cutter left, the locust swarm has eaten; What the locust swarm left, the grasshopper has eaten; And what the grasshopper left, the devourer has eaten.
5 Wake up, you drunkards, and weep; wail, all you drinkers of wine, Because the juice of the grape will be withheld from your mouths.
6 For a people has invaded my land, mighty and without number; His teeth are the teeth of a lion, and his molars those of a lioness.
7 He has laid waste my vine, and blighted my fig tree; He has stripped it, sheared off its bark; its branches are made white.
8 Lament like a virgin girt with sackcloth for the spouse of her youth.
9 Abolished are offering and libation from the house of the LORD; In mourning are the priests, the ministers of the LORD.
10 The field is ravaged, the earth mourns, Because the grain is ravaged, the must has failed, the oil languishes.
11 Be appalled, you husbandmen! wail, you vinedressers! Over the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished.
12 The vine has dried up, the fig tree is withered; The pomegranate, the date palm also, and the apple, all the trees of the field are dried up; Yes, joy has withered away from among mankind.
13 Gird yourselves and weep, O priests! wail, O ministers of the altar! Come, spend the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my God! The house of your God is deprived of offering and libation.
14 Proclaim a fast, call an assembly; Gather the elders, all who dwell in the land, Into the house of the LORD, your God, and cry to the LORD!
15 Alas, the day! for near is the day of the LORD, and it comes as ruin from the Almighty.
16 From before our very eyes has not the food been cut off; And from the house of our God, joy and gladness?
17 The seed lies shriveled under its clods; the stores are destroyed, The barns are broken down, for the grain has failed.
18 How the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are bewildered! Because they have no pasturage, even the flocks of sheep have perished.
19 To you, O LORD, I cry! for fire has devoured the pastures of the plain, and flame has enkindled all the trees of the field.
20 Even the beasts of the field cry out to you; For the streams of water are dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the plain.
Philippians 3
1 Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. Writing the same things to you is no burden for me but is a safeguard for you.
2 Beware of the dogs! Beware of the evil workers! Beware of the mutilation!
3 For we are the circumcision, we who worship through the Spirit of God, who boast in Christ Jesus and do not put our confidence in flesh,
4 although I myself have grounds for confidence even in the flesh.If anyone else thinks he can be confident in flesh, all the more can I.
5 Circumcised on the eighth day, of the race of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrew parentage, in observance of the law a Pharisee,
6 in zeal I persecuted the church, in righteousness based on the law I was blameless.
7 (But) whatever gains I had, these I have come to consider a loss because of Christ.
8 More than that, I even consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ
9 and be found in him, not having any righteousness of my own based on the law but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God, depending on faith
10 to know him and the power of his resurrection and (the) sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death,
11 if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
12 It is not that I have already taken hold of it or have already attained perfect maturity, but I continue my pursuit in hope that I may possess it, since I have indeed been taken possession of by Christ (Jesus).
13 Brothers, I for my part do not consider myself to have taken possession. Just one thing: forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead,
14 I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus.
15 Let us, then, who are “perfectly mature” adopt this attitude. And if you have a different attitude, this too God will reveal to you.
16 Only, with regard to what we have attained, continue on the same course.
17 Join with others in being imitators of me, brothers, and observe those who thus conduct themselves according to the model you have in us.
18 For many, as I have often told you and now tell you even in tears, conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ.
19 Their end is destruction. Their God is their stomach; their glory is in their “shame.” Their minds are occupied with earthly things.
20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
21 He will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself.
