Joel 1

Joel 1

¹The Word of Yahweh * that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel.

²Hear this, you elders,

And listen, all you inhabitants of the land.

Has this ever happened in your days,

or in the days of your fathers?

³Tell your children about it,

and have your children tell their children,

and their children, another generation.

⁴What the swarming locust has left, the great locust has eaten.

What the great locust has left, the grasshopper has eaten.

What the grasshopper has left, the caterpillar has eaten.

⁵Wake up, you drunkards, and weep!

Wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine;

for it is cut off from your mouth.

⁶For a nation has come up on my land, strong, and without number.

His teeth are the teeth of a lion,

and he has the fangs of a lioness.

⁷He has laid my vine waste,

and stripped my fig tree.

He has stripped its bark, and thrown it away.

Its branches are made white.

⁸Mourn like a virgin dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth! ⁹The meal offering and the drink offering are cut off from Yahweh’s house.

The priests, Yahweh’s ministers, mourn.

¹⁰The field is laid waste.

The land mourns, for the grain is destroyed,

The new wine has dried up,

and the oil languishes.

¹¹Be confounded, you farmers!

Wail, you vineyard keepers;

for the wheat and for the barley;

for the harvest of the field has perished.

¹²The vine has dried up, and the fig tree withered;

the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree,

even all of the trees of the field are withered;

for joy has withered away from the sons of men.

¹³Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests!

Wail, you ministers of the altar.

Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God *,

for the meal offering and the drink offering are withheld from your God’s house.

¹⁴Sanctify a fast.

Call a solemn assembly.

Gather the elders,

and all the inhabitants of the land, to the house of Yahweh, your God,

and cry to Yahweh.

¹⁵Alas for the day!

For the day of Yahweh is at hand,

and it will come as destruction from the Almighty.

¹⁶Isn’t the food cut off before our eyes;

joy and gladness from the house of our God?

¹⁷The seeds rot under their clods.

The granaries are laid desolate.

The barns are broken down, for the grain has withered.

¹⁸How the animals groan!

The herds of livestock are perplexed, because they have no pasture.

Yes, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.

¹⁹Yahweh, I cry to you,

For the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness,

and the flame has burned all the trees of the field.

²⁰Yes, the animals of the field pant to you,

for the water brooks have dried up,

And the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.