Lectionary Calendar
Tuesday, August 19th, 2025
the Week of Proper 15 / Ordinary 20
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Read the Bible

Literal Standard Version

Joel 3:10

Beat your plowshares to swords, || And your pruning-hooks to javelins, || Let the weak say, "I [am] mighty."

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Hooks;   Joel;   Plowshare;   Pruning;   Spear;   Sword;   Scofield Reference Index - Judgments;   Thompson Chain Reference - Agriculture-Horticulture;   Pruning-Hook;   The Topic Concordance - Day of the Lord;   Enemies;   Gathering;   Gentiles/heathen;   Harvest;   Israel/jews;   Judges;   Nations;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Agriculture or Husbandry;   Spear;   Sword, the;  

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Plough;   Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Grapes;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Day of the Lord, God, Christ, the;   Easton Bible Dictionary - Coulter;   Hook;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Joel;   Tools;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Armour, Arms;   Joel, Book of;   Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament - Thessalonians Epistles to the;   Morrish Bible Dictionary - Arms;   People's Dictionary of the Bible - Jehoshaphat (2);   Smith Bible Dictionary - Hook, Hooks;   Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types - Pruning hook;   Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary - Plough;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Armor;   Hook;   Joel (2);   Plow;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Sword;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Beat your plows into swordsand your pruning knives into spears.Let even the weakling say, “I am a warrior.”
Hebrew Names Version
Beat your plowshares into swords, And your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, "I am strong."
King James Version
Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.
English Standard Version
Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, "I am a warrior."
New American Standard Bible
Beat your plowshares into swords, And your pruning hooks into spears; Let the weak man say, "I am a warrior."
New Century Version
Make swords from your plows, and make spears from your hooks for trimming trees. Let even the weak person say, "I am a soldier."
Amplified Bible
Beat your plowshares into swords And your pruning hooks into spears; Let the weak say, "I am strong!"
Geneva Bible (1587)
Breake your plowshares into swords, and your sithes into speares: let the weake say, I am strong.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
Beat your plowshares into swords And your pruning hooks into spears; Let the weak say, "I am a mighty man."
Legacy Standard Bible
Beat your plowshares into swordsAnd your pruning hooks into spears;Let the weak say, "I am a mighty man."
Berean Standard Bible
Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, 'I am strong!'
Contemporary English Version
Make swords out of plows and spears out of garden tools. Strengthen every weakling."
Complete Jewish Bible
class="poetry"> "After this, I will pour out my Spirit on all humanity. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions; and also on male and female slaves in those days I will pour out my Spirit. I will show wonders in the sky and on earth — blood, fire and columns of smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the coming of the great and terrible Day of Adonai ." At that time, whoever calls on the name of Adonai will be saved. For in Mount Tziyon and Yerushalayim there will be those who escape, as Adonai has promised; among the survivors will be those whom Adonai has called.
Darby Translation
Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your pruning-knives into spears; let the weak say, I am strong.
Easy-to-Read Version
Beat your plows into swords. Make spears from your pruning hooks. Let the weak man say, "I am a strong soldier."
George Lamsa Translation
Beat your plowshares into swords and your sickles into spears. Let the weak say, I am a mighty man.
Good News Translation
Hammer the points of your plows into swords and your pruning knives into spears. Even the weak must fight.
Lexham English Bible
Beat your cutting tools of iron into swords and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weakling say, ‘I am a mighty warrior!'
Literal Translation
Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, I am strong.
American Standard Version
Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.
Bible in Basic English
Get your plough-blades hammered into swords, and your vine-knives into spears: let the feeble say, I am strong.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
[4:10] Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears; let the weak say: 'I am strong.'
King James Version (1611)
Beate your plowe shares into swords, and your pruning hookes into speares, let the weake say, I am strong.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Breake your plowe shares into swordes, and your sithes into speares, let the weake say, I am strong.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your sickles into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.
English Revised Version
Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.
World English Bible
Beat your plowshares into swords, And your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, "I am strong."
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Beete ye togydere youre plowis in to swerdis, and youre mattokkis in to speeris; a sijk man seie, that Y am strong.
Update Bible Version
Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.
Webster's Bible Translation
Beat your plow-shares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I [am] strong.
New English Translation
Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears! Let the weak say, ‘I too am a warrior!'
New King James Version
Beat your plowshares into swords And your pruning hooks into spears; Let the weak say, "I am strong."'
New Living Translation
Hammer your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Train even your weaklings to be warriors.
New Life Bible
Beat your plows into swords, and your vine hooks into spears. Let the weak say, "I am a powerful soldier."
New Revised Standard
Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weakling say, "I am a warrior."
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Beat your plough-shares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears, - as for the weak, let him say, mighty, I am.
Douay-Rheims Bible
Cut your ploughshares into swords, and your spades into spears. Let the weak say: I am strong.
Revised Standard Version
Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, "I am a warrior."
Young's Literal Translation
Beat your ploughshares to swords, And your pruning-hooks to javelins, Let the weak say, `I [am] mighty.'
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Make you sweardes of youre ploweshares, and speares of youre syckles & sythes. Let ye weake man saye: I am stronge.

Contextual Overview

9Proclaim this among nations, || Sanctify a war, stir up the mighty ones, || Come near, come up, let all the men of war. 10Beat your plowshares to swords, || And your pruning-hooks to javelins, || Let the weak say, "I [am] mighty."11Hurry, and come in, all you nations around, || And be gathered together, || There cause to come down, O YHWH, || Your mighty ones. 12"Let the nations wake and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, || For there I sit to judge all the nations around. 13Send forth a sickle, || For harvest has ripened, || Come in, come down, for the press has been filled, || Winepresses have overflowed, || For great [is] their wickedness." 14Multitudes, multitudes [are] in the Valley of Decision, || For near [is] the Day of YHWH in the Valley of Decision. 15Sun and moon have been black, || And stars have gathered up their shining. 16And YHWH roars from Zion, || And gives forth His voice from Jerusalem, || And the heavens and earth have shaken, || And YHWH [is] a refuge to His people, || And a stronghold to sons of Israel. 17"And you have known that I [am] your God YHWH, || Dwelling in Zion, My holy mountain, || And Jerusalem has been holy, || And strangers do not pass over into it again."

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

your plowshares: Isaiah 2:4, Micah 4:3, Luke 22:36

pruninghooks: or, scythes

let: 2 Chronicles 25:8, Zechariah 12:8

Reciprocal: 1 Kings 20:22 - strengthen Isaiah 41:1 - let the people Luke 13:12 - loosed

Cross-References

Genesis 2:25
And both of them are naked, the man and his wife, and they are not ashamed of themselves.
Genesis 3:7
and the eyes of them both are opened, and they know that they [are] naked, and they sew fig-leaves, and make girdles for themselves.
Genesis 3:17
And to the man He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and eat from the tree concerning which I have charged you, saying, You do not eat of it, cursed [is] the ground on your account; in sorrow you eat of it [for] all days of your life,
Genesis 3:18
and it brings forth thorn and bramble for you, and you have eaten the herb of the field;
Exodus 3:6
He also says, "I [am] the God of your father, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob"; and Moses hides his face, for he is afraid to look toward God.
Exodus 32:25
And Moses sees the people, that it [is] unbridled, for Aaron has made it unbridled for contempt among its withstanders,
Job 23:15
Therefore, I am troubled at His presence, I consider, and am afraid of Him.
Psalms 119:120
My flesh has trembled from Your fear, || And I have been afraid from Your judgments!
Isaiah 33:14
Sinners have been afraid in Zion, || Trembling has seized the profane: Who dwells for us—consuming fire, || Who dwells for us—burnings of the age?
Isaiah 47:3
Your nakedness is revealed, indeed, your reproach is seen, || I take vengeance, and I do not meet a man."

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears,.... Let not only soldiers, and such as have been trained up in military discipline, appear in the field on this occasion; but let husbandmen and vinedressers leave their fields and vineyards, and turn their instruments of husbandry and vinedressing into weapons of war; let them not plead want of armour, but convert these to such uses: on the contrary, when this battle will be over, swords shall be beaten into ploughshares, and spears into pruning hooks, Isaiah 2:4;

let the weak say, I [am] strong; such as are weak, through sickness, or old age, let them not plead their weakness to excuse them from engaging in this war; but let them make the best of themselves, and say they are strong and healthy, and fit for it, and enter in it with all courage and bravery: this is said either ironically to the enemies of God's people, suggesting that all hands would be wanted, and should be employed, weak and strong, and all little enough; when they had made the utmost effort they could, it would be in vain: or else they are seriously spoken to the people of God, that none of them should excuse themselves, or be discouraged because of their weakness from engaging in this last and more battle; but take heart, and be of good courage, and quit themselves like men, and be strong, since they might be sure of victory beforehand. The Apostle Paul refers to this text in

2 Corinthians 12:10; and applies it to spiritual weakness and strength; and indeed the weakest believer, that is so in faith and] knowledge, may say he is strong, in comparison of what he once was, and others are; strong, not in himself, but in Christ, and the power of his might, and in the grace that is in him; nor should he excuse himself from fighting the Lord's battles, against sin, Satan, and the world, and false teachers; or from doing the Lord's work, any service he calls him to; or from bearing the cross he lays on him on account of his weakness; nor should he: be discouraged by it from those things; but let him strengthen himself, as Aben Ezra interprets it, take heart, and be of good courage.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Beat your plowshares into swords - Peace had been already promised, as a blessing of the gospel. “In His days,” foretold Solomon, “shall the righteous flourish, and abundance of peace, so long as the moon endureth” Psalms 72:7. And another, “He maketh thy borders peace” Psalms 147:14. Peace within with God flows forth in peace with man. “Righteousness and peace kissed each other” Psalms 85:10. Where there is not rest in God, all is unrest. And so, all which was needful for life, the means of subsistence, care of health, were to be forgotten for war.

Let the weak say, I am strong - It is one last gathering of the powers of the world against their Maker; the closing scene of man’s rebellion against God. It is their one universal gathering. None, however seemingly unfit, was to be spared from this conflict; no one was to remain behind. The farmer was to forge for war the instruments of his peaceful toil; the sick was to forget his weakness and to put on a strength which he had not, and that to the uttermost. But as weakness is, in and through God, strength, so all strength out of God is weakness. Man may say, I am strong; but, against God, he remains weak as, it is said, that weak man Psalms 10:18) from the earth may no more oppress.


 
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