Replies

JOEL 2:12-18
Rend your hearts, not your garments.
Even now, says the LORD,
return to me with your whole heart,
with fasting, and weeping, and mourning;
Rend your hearts, not your garments,
and return to the LORD, your God.
For gracious and merciful is he,
slow to anger, rich in kindness,
and relenting in punishment.
Perhaps he will again relent
and leave behind him a blessing,
Offerings and libations
for the LORD, your God.
Blow the trumpet in Zion!
proclaim a fast,
call an assembly;
Gather the people,
notify the congregation;
Assemble the elders,
gather the children
and the infants at the breast;
Let the bridegroom quit his room
and the bride her chamber.
Between the porch and the altar
let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep,
And say, "Spare, O LORD, your people,
and make not your heritage a reproach,
with the nations ruling over them!
Why should they say among the peoples,
‘Where is their God?’"

Then the LORD was stirred to concern for his land
and took pity on his people.

EZEKIEL 36:23-28
I shall pour clean water upon you to
cleanse you from all your impurities.
Thus says the LORD: I will prove the holiness of my
great name, profaned among the nations, in whose
midst you have profaned it. Thus the nations shall
know that I am the LORD, says the Lord GOD, when in
their sight I prove my holiness through you. For I will
take you away from among the nations, gather you
from all the foreign lands, and bring you back to your
own land. I will sprinkle clean water upon you to
cleanse you from all your impurities, and from all
your idols I will cleanse you. I will give you a new
heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from
your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural
hearts. I will put my spirit within you and make you
live by my statutes, careful to observe my decrees. You
shall live in the land I gave your ancestors; you shall
be my people, and I will be your God.