Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.
Parallel translations
- WEB Tell your children about it, and have your children tell their children, and their children, another generation.
- BSB Tell it to your children; let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation.
- NKJV Tell your children about it, Let your children tell their children, And their children another generation.
- NASB Tell your sons about it, And have your sons tell their sons, And their sons the next generation.
- NLT Tell your children about it in the years to come, and let your children tell their children. Pass the story down from generation to generation.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The people are to recount this event to their children for generations. The disaster is to become a lasting lesson about God's dealings.
Overview
Joel commands that the locust plague be passed down through successive generations as instruction. Israel was repeatedly charged to teach God's mighty acts to their children (Deuteronomy 6:7), so that memory would shape faith. This generational telling preserves the testimony of God's judgment and mercy, a pattern fulfilled as the church proclaims the greater acts of God in Christ to those who follow.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Deut 6:7And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
- Ps 145:4One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts.
- Exod 13:14And it shall be when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What is this? that thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand the LORD brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage:
- Ps 71:18Now also when I am old and greyheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come.
- Isa 38:19The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day: the father to the children shall make known thy truth.
- Exod 10:1–2And the LORD said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh: for I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I might shew these my signs before him:
- Ps 78:3–8Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.
- Ps 44:1We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what work thou didst in their days, in the times of old.
- Josh 4:21–22And he spake unto the children of Israel, saying, When your children shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean these stones?
- Josh 4:6–7That this may be a sign among you, that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones?
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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Christ at the center
The promised outpouring of the Spirit on all flesh and the call to 'everyone who calls on the name of the LORD' are fulfilled at Pentecost in the name of Jesus.
How Joel 1:3 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.