Joel 1

¹The word of the Lord

²Hear this, you elders, And give ear, all you inhabitants of the land! Has anything like this happened in your days, Or even in the days of your fathers?

³Tell your children about it, Let your children tell their children, And their children another generation.

⁴What the chewing locust left, the swarming locust has eaten; What the swarming locust left, the crawling locust has eaten; And what the crawling locust left, the consuming locust has eaten.

⁵Awake, you drunkards, and weep; And wail, all you drinkers of wine, Because of the new wine, For it has been cut off from your mouth.

⁶For a nation has come up against My land, Strong, and without number; His teeth are the teeth of a lion, And he has the fangs of a fierce lion.

⁷He has laid waste My vine, And ruined My fig tree; He has stripped it bare and thrown it away; Its branches are made white.

⁸Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth For the husband of her youth.

⁹The grain offering and the drink offering Have been cut off from the house of the Lord The priests mourn, who minister to the Lord

¹⁰The field is wasted, The land mourns; For the grain is ruined, The new wine is dried up, The oil fails.

¹¹Be ashamed, you farmers, Wail, you vinedressers, For the wheat and the barley; Because the harvest of the field has perished.

¹²The vine has dried up, And the fig tree has withered; The pomegranate tree, The palm tree also, And the apple tree— All the trees of the field are withered; Surely joy has withered away from the sons of men.

¹³Gird yourselves and lament, you priests; Wail, you who minister before the altar; Come, lie all night in sackcloth, You who minister to my God; For the grain offering and the drink offering Are withheld from the house of your God.

¹⁴Consecrate a fast, Call a sacred assembly; Gather the elders And all the inhabitants of the land Into the house of the Lord And cry out to the Lord

¹⁵Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord It shall come as destruction from the Almighty.

¹⁶Is not the food cut off before our eyes, Joy and gladness from the house of our God?

¹⁷The seed shrivels under the clods, Storehouses are in shambles; Barns are broken down, For the grain has withered.

¹⁸How the animals groan! The herds of cattle are restless, Because they have no pasture; Even the flocks of sheep suffer punishment.

¹⁹O Lord For fire has devoured the open pastures, And a flame has burned all the trees of the field.

²⁰The beasts of the field also cry out to You, For the water brooks are dried up, And fire has devoured the open pastures.