Book of Joel

When I read this aloud a few lines popped into my head as being especially beautiful. The first of which is "Awake, drunkards, and weep; and wail all you wine drinkers, on account of the sweet wine that is cut off from your mouth." The alliteration of all the w's inside and outside of each word adds a flow to the poem that makes it leap off the page and feels very smooth. The next one that I thought was great was "The vine dries up and the fig tree fails; The pomegranate, the palm also, and the apple tree, all the trees of the field dry up." That one just paints such a morbid and desolate picture in my head that I can vividly see and I love words that form images in a person's mind. A few more good ones that pain great pictures in my head are "As the dawn is spread over the mountains." "A fire consumes before them and behind them a flame burns the land is like the garden of Eden before them but a desolate wilderness behind them." I especially like the beauty of the reference to the garden of Eden because it places in your mind the image of a garden of perfection and the contrast to a great wilderness behind gives this great image of you standing on the border and seeing that this is the rift between two worlds that you are standing on. "Return to me with all your heart, and with fasting weeping and mourning." That is just the epitome of being humble. The way that God straigh up says that He wants us to make ourselves less and to repent and come back its like a lover would say to one who has left them. That they would want an outward show of an inward change in their heart for what they have done and the manner in which they left.