Joel 1

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

² Hear this, you elders! Pay attention, all you who dwell in the land! Has the like of this happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers?

³ Tell it to your children, and your children to their children, and their children to the next generation.

⁴ What the cutter left, the locust swarm has eaten; What the locust swarm left, the grasshopper has eaten; And what the grasshopper left, the devourer has eaten.

⁵ Wake up, you drunkards, and weep; wail, all you drinkers of wine, Because the juice of the grape will be withheld from your mouths.

⁶ For a people has invaded my land, mighty and without number; His teeth are the teeth of a lion, and his molars those of a lioness.

⁷ He has laid waste my vine, and blighted my fig tree; He has stripped it, sheared off its bark; its branches are made white.

⁸ Lament like a virgin girt with sackcloth for the spouse of her youth.

⁹ Abolished are offering and libation from the house of the LORD; In mourning are the priests, the ministers of the LORD.

¹⁰ The field is ravaged, the earth mourns, Because the grain is ravaged, the must has failed, the oil languishes.

¹¹ Be appalled, you husbandmen! wail, you vinedressers! Over the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished.

¹² The vine has dried up, the fig tree is withered; The pomegranate, the date palm also, and the apple, all the trees of the field are dried up; Yes, joy has withered away from among mankind.

¹³ Gird yourselves and weep, O priests! wail, O ministers of the altar! Come, spend the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my God! The house of your God is deprived of offering and libation.

¹⁴ Proclaim a fast, call an assembly; Gather the elders, all who dwell in the land, Into the house of the LORD, your God, and cry to the LORD!

¹⁵ Alas, the day! for near is the day of the LORD, and it comes as ruin from the Almighty.

¹⁶ From before our very eyes has not the food been cut off; And from the house of our God, joy and gladness?

¹⁷ The seed lies shriveled under its clods; the stores are destroyed, The barns are broken down, for the grain has failed.

¹⁸ How the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are bewildered! Because they have no pasturage, even the flocks of sheep have perished.

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

²⁰ Even the beasts of the field cry out to you; For the streams of water are dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the plain.