Joel 3:5
What does Joel 3:5 mean?
A plain-English look at Joel 3:5 in WEB alongside six other public-domain English translations, with cross-references and chapter context.
What Joel 3:5 means
God charges these nations with sacrilege: they seized His “silver and gold” and carried His “goodly precious things” into their temples. The offense is not only theft but a theological insult—parading what belongs to the Lord before idols. They treated holy things as trophies of their gods. The Lord, however, calls these treasures “my” goods, reminding hearers that whatever was taken—whether temple vessels or people’s wealth devoted to Him—remained under His ownership. He will not allow His glory to be pawned in foreign shrines. In claiming these items publicly, He prepares to reclaim them and to disgrace the false worship that boasted over Him.
Parallel translations
WEB
World English Bible · 2000Forasmuch as ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my goodly precious things,
KJV
King James Version · 1611Because ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my goodly pleasant things:
ASV
American Standard Version · 1901Forasmuch as ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my goodly precious things,
BBE
Bible in Basic English · 1949For you have taken my silver and my gold, putting in the houses of your gods my beautiful and pleasing things.
YLT
Young's Literal Translation · 1862In that My silver and My gold ye took, And My desirable things that are good, Ye have brought in to your temples.
DRA
Douay-Rheims (Challoner) · 1752For you have taken away my silver, and my gold: and my desirable, and most beautiful things you have carried into your temples.
DBY
Darby Bible · 1890because ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my beautiful pleasant things,
Context
This verse continues the specific indictment begun in verse 4. It deepens the charge from political aggression to religious affront. By naming temples and precious things, it illumines the spiritual dimension of the conflict: rival claims of deity. The next verse adds the human toll—the selling of Judah’s children to distant buyers—showing how economic greed and idolatry combined in Judah’s suffering.
v.4Yea, and what are ye to me, O Tyre, and Sidon, and all the regions of Philistia? will ye render me a recompense? and if ye recompense me, swiftly and speedily will I return your recompense upon your own head.
v.5This passage
v.6and have sold the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem unto the sons of the Grecians, that ye may remove them far from their border;
Cross references
Related passages from across Scripture, drawn from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge.
- Jeremiah 51:11
Make sharp the arrows; hold firm the shields: Jehovah hath stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes; because his purpose is against Babylon, to destroy it: for it is the vengeance of Jehovah, the vengeance of his temple.
- Daniel 11:38
But in his place shall he honor the god of fortresses; and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honor with gold, and silver, and with precious stones and pleasant things.
- 2 Chronicles 21:16
And Jehovah stirred up against Jehoram the spirit of the Philistines, and of the Arabians that are beside the Ethiopians:
- Daniel 5:2
Belshazzar, while he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines, might drink therefrom.
- 1 Samuel 5:2
And the Philistines took the ark of God, and brought it into the house of Dagon, and set it by Dagon.
- 2 Kings 16:8
And Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of Jehovah, and in the treasures of the king’s house, and sent it for a present to the king of Assyria.
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