Return to the Lord (JOL 2:12-17)

[2:12] “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;

[2:13] and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.

[2:14] Who 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?

[2:15] Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly;

[2:16] gather the people. Consecrate the congregation; assemble the elders; gather the children, even nursing infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber.

[2:17] Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep and say, “Spare your people, O Lord, and make not your heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”