Joel 2:12-18
Chapter 2
Penance and Supplication
The Lord says: “Yet even now, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning.Rend your heart, not your garment. Return to the Lord, your God, gracious and compassionate.” The Lord is patient, full of kindness, and quick to show mercy.
Who knows? Maybe he will relent again and spare some of the harvest, so we can bring sacred offerings to the Lord, your God.
Sound the trumpet in Zion, announce a sacred fast, and gather a solemn assembly.
Gather the people, consecrate the community, bring together the elders, even the children and infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his bed, and the bride her room.
Between the vestibule and the altar, let the priests, the Lord’s ministers, weep and pray: Spare your people, Lord. Do not humiliate them or let them become a disgrace among the nations. Why should it be said among the people: Where is their God?
The Lord has become jealous for his land; he took pity on his people.
Commentaries
Penance and Supplication.
The Lord himself makes a heartfelt call for his people to undergo sincere and profound conversion. They need to rediscover their identity rooted in their covenant with the Lord. God shows his mercy (13) and refines his people through hardship so they can repent and gain life (14; cf. Ezk 33:11).