repentance and relief

Good afternoon friends,
I hope this beautiful day has been a good one for you. Today's reading starts with hope for God's forgiveness and ends with a promise for the conclusion of history. Even when God judges us and calls us to change our ways there is a future. God corrects us to bring us back to the right path. In the end there will be blessing. Notice too the last paragraph. God promises the Holy Spirit for everyone, not just for prophets. That's exactly what happens at Pentecost.

God bless,
Sam

Joel 2:12-16, 18-21, 28-32

¹²Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; ¹³rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. ¹⁴Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord, your God? ¹⁵Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly; ¹⁶gather the people. Sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her canopy.

¹⁸Then the Lord became jealous for his land, and had pity on his people. ¹⁹In response to his people the Lord said: I am sending you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a mockery among the nations. ²⁰I will remove the northern army far from you, and drive it into a parched and desolate land, its front into the eastern sea, and its rear into the western sea; its stench and foul smell will rise up. Surely he has done great things! ²¹Do not fear, O soil; be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things!

²⁸Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. ²⁹Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit. ³⁰I will show portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. ³¹The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. ³²Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.