- The word of the LORD that came to Joel
son of Pethuel.
- Hear this, you elders; listen, all who
live in the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in
the days of your forefathers ?
- Tell it to your children, and let your
children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation.
- What the locust swarm has left the great
locusts have eaten; what the great locusts have left the young locusts have
eaten; what the young locusts have left other locusts have eaten.
- Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail,
all you drinkers of wine; wail because of the new wine, for it has been
snatched from your lips.
- A nation has invaded my land, powerful
and without number; it has the teeth of a lion, the fangs of a lioness.
- It has laid waste my vines and ruined my
fig trees. It has stripped off their bark and thrown it away, leaving their
branches white.
- Mourn like a virgin in sackcloth grieving
for the husband of her youth.
- Grain offerings and drink offerings are
cut off from the house of the LORD. The priests are in mourning, those who
minister before the LORD.
- The fields are ruined, the ground is dried
up; the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, the oil fails.
- Despair, you farmers, wail, you vine growers;
grieve for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field is
destroyed.
- The vine is dried up and the fig tree is
withered; the pomegranate, the palm and the apple tree -- all the trees
of the field -- are dried up. Surely the joy of mankind is withered away.
- Put on sackcloth, O priests, and mourn;
wail, you who minister before the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth,
you who minister before my God; for the grain offerings and drink offerings
are withheld from the house of your God.
- Declare a holy fast; call a sacred assembly.
Summon the elders and all who live in the land to the house of the LORD
your God, and cry out to the LORD.
- Alas for that day! For the day of the LORD
is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty.
- Has not the food been cut off before our
very eyes -- joy and gladness from the house of our God ?
- The seeds are shriveled beneath the clods.
The storehouses are in ruins, the granaries have been broken down, for the
grain has dried up.
- How the cattle moan! The herds mill about
because they have no pasture; even the flocks of sheep are suffering.
- To you, O LORD, I call, for fire has devoured
the open pastures and flames have burned up all the trees of the field.
- Even the wild animals pant for you; the
streams of water have dried up and fire has devoured the open pastures.
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