A Call to Repentance and Prayer

¹³Put on sackcloth and lament, you priests;
   wail, you ministers of the altar.
Come, pass the night in sackcloth,
   you ministers of my God!
Grain-offering and drink-offering
   are withheld from the house of your God.

¹⁴Sanctify a fast,
   call a solemn assembly.
Gather the elders
   and all the inhabitants of the land
to the house of the Lord your God,
   and cry out to the Lord.

¹⁵Alas for the day!
For the day of the Lord is near,
   and as destruction from the Almighty^* it comes.

2Blow the trumpet in Zion;
   sound the alarm on my holy mountain!
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,
   for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near—
²a day of darkness and gloom,
   a day of clouds and thick darkness!
Like blackness spread upon the mountains
   a great and powerful army comes;
their like has never been from of old,
   nor will be again after them
   in ages to come.