Joël 1

The locusts and the ruined land

¹The LORD’s word came to Joel son of Pethuel.^{a 2}Hear this, you elders! \q Listen, all who live in the land! \q Has anything like this happened in your days, \q or in the days of your ancestors? ³Tell your children about it, \q and let your children tell their children, \q and their children the generation after them. ⁴What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. \q What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, \q and what the hopping locust left, the stripping locust has eaten.^{b 5}Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! \q Wail, all you who drink wine, \q because the sweet wine has been cut off from your lips. ⁶For a nation has invaded my land, \q powerful and too many to count. \q Its teeth are a lion’s teeth; \q it has the fangs of a lioness.^{cd 7}It has laid waste my vines \q and turned my fig trees to broken stumps. \q It has stripped off their bark and thrown it down, \q and their branches are left white. ⁸Mourn like a young woman dressed in sackcloth, \q grieving for the man she was pledged to marry.^{e 9}Grain offerings and drink offerings have ceased in the house of the LORD. \q The priests grieve, \q those who serve the LORD. ¹⁰The fields are laid waste; the ground is in mourning, \q for the grain is ruined, \q the new wine has dried up, and the olive oil has failed. ¹¹Be dismayed, you farmers! Wail, you who tend the vines, \q over the wheat and the barley, \q because the harvest of the field is lost. ¹²The vine has withered, \q the fig tree droops; \q pomegranate, palm, and apple tree, all the trees of the field are dried up. \q Surely joy has withered away from the people.

A call to fast and cry out to the LORD

¹³Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests! \q Wail, you who serve at the altar! \q Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you who serve my God! \q For grain offerings and drink offerings are kept back from the house of your God. ¹⁴Proclaim a holy fast; call a solemn assembly. \q Gather the elders and all who live in the land \q at the house of the LORD your God, \q and cry to the LORD for help. ¹⁵Alas for that day! \q For the day of the LORD is close at hand, \q and it will come like ruin from the Almighty.^{f 16}Has not the food been cut off before our very eyes, \q and joy and gladness from the house of our God? ¹⁷The seeds lie shriveled under the clods; \q the storehouses stand empty; \q the granaries are falling down, \q for the grain has withered.^{g 18}How the animals moan! The herds of cattle wander about in confusion, \q because they have no pasture; \q the flocks of sheep are suffering as well. ¹⁹To you, LORD, I cry out, \q for fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness, \q and flames have burned up all the trees of the field. ²⁰Even the wild animals long for you, \q because the streams of water have dried up, \q and fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness.