Joel 2:3

New International Version

Before them fire devours, behind them a flame blazes. Before them the land is like the garden of Eden, behind them, a desert waste— nothing escapes them.

Cross References

Genesis 13:10

Lot looked around and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan toward Zoar was well watered, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.)

Genesis 2:8

Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.

Psalm 50:3

Our God comes and will not be silent; a fire devours before him, and around him a tempest rages.

Psalm 97:3

Fire goes before him and consumes his foes on every side.

Exodus 10:15

They covered all the ground until it was black. They devoured all that was left after the hail—everything growing in the fields and the fruit on the trees. Nothing green remained on tree or plant in all the land of Egypt.

Exodus 10:5

They will cover the face of the ground so that it cannot be seen. They will devour what little you have left after the hail, including every tree that is growing in your fields.

Isaiah 14:17

the man who made the world a wilderness, who overthrew its cities and would not let his captives go home?”

Isaiah 15:6

The waters of Nimrim are dried up and the grass is withered; the vegetation is gone and nothing green is left.

Isaiah 33:4

Your plunder, O nations, is harvested as by young locusts; like a swarm of locusts people pounce on it.

Isaiah 51:3

The Lord will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins; he will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing.

Isaiah 9:18

Surely wickedness burns like a fire; it consumes briers and thorns, it sets the forest thickets ablaze, so that it rolls upward in a column of smoke.

Isaiah 9:19

By the wrath of the Lord Almighty the land will be scorched and the people will be fuel for the fire; they will not spare one another.

Jeremiah 5:17

They will devour your harvests and food, devour your sons and daughters; they will devour your flocks and herds, devour your vines and fig trees. With the sword they will destroy the fortified cities in which you trust.

Ezekiel 36:35

They will say, “This land that was laid waste has become like the garden of Eden; the cities that were lying in ruins, desolate and destroyed, are now fortified and inhabited.”

Amos 7:4

This is what the Sovereign Lord showed me: The Sovereign Lord was calling for judgment by fire; it dried up the great deep and devoured the land.

Habakkuk 1:6

I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwellings not their own.

Zechariah 7:14

‘I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations, where they were strangers. The land they left behind them was so desolate that no one traveled through it. This is how they made the pleasant land desolate.’ ”