Joel 1

¹ The word of the LORD that came to Joel son of Pethuel.

² Hear this, you elders;
listen, all who live in the land.
Has anything like this happened in your days,
or in the days of your ancestors?

³ Tell your children about it,
and let your children tell their children,
and their children the next generation.

⁴ What the cutting locust left,
the swarming locust has eaten;
what the swarming locust left,
the creeping locust has eaten;
and what the creeping locust left,
the stripping locust has eaten.

⁵ Wake up, you drunkards, and weep!
Wail, all you drinkers of wine,
because of the sweet wine —
for it is cut off from your mouth.

⁶ For a nation has come up against my land,
powerful and beyond number.
Its teeth are lion's teeth;
it has the fangs of a lioness.

⁷ It has laid waste my vine
and splintered my fig tree.
It has stripped them bare and cast them aside;
their branches have turned white.

⁸ Lament like a young woman dressed in sackcloth
for the husband of her youth.

⁹ The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off
from the house of the LORD.
The priests mourn —
the ministers of the LORD.

¹⁰ The fields are devastated;
the ground mourns,
for the grain is destroyed,
the new wine has dried up,
the olive oil fails.

¹¹ Be ashamed, you farmers;
wail, you vinedressers,
for the wheat and the barley —
because the harvest of the field has perished.

¹² The vine has dried up
and the fig tree has withered —
the pomegranate, the palm, and the apple tree,
all the trees of the field have dried up.
Surely joy has dried up
among the children of mankind.

¹³ Put on sackcloth and lament, you priests;
wail, you ministers of the altar.
Come, spend the night in sackcloth,
you ministers of my God,
for the grain offering and the drink offering
are withheld from the house of your God.

¹⁴ Consecrate a fast;
call a sacred assembly.
Gather the elders
and all who live in the land
to the house of the LORD your God,
and cry out to the LORD.

¹⁵ Alas for the day!
For the day of the LORD is near,
and as destruction from the Almighty it will come.

¹⁶ Has not the food been cut off
before our eyes —
joy and gladness
from the house of our God?

¹⁷ The seeds shrivel beneath their clods;
the storehouses are desolate;
the granaries are torn down,
for the grain has dried up.

¹⁸ How the beasts groan!
The herds of cattle are bewildered
because they have no pasture;
even the flocks of sheep suffer.

¹⁹ To you, O LORD, I cry,
for fire has devoured
the pastures of the wilderness,
and flame has burned
all the trees of the field.

²⁰ Even the beasts of the field pant for you,
for the water channels have dried up,
and fire has devoured
the pastures of the wilderness.