1 The word of Yahweh that came to Joel the son of Pethuel.

2 Hear this, you{+} old men, and give ear, all you{+} inhabitants of the land. Has this been in your{+} days, or in the days of your{+} fathers?

3 Tell{+} your{+} sons of it, and [let] your{+} sons [tell] their sons, and their sons another generation.

4 That which the palmer-worm has left has the locust eaten; and that which the locust has left has the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm has left has the caterpillar eaten.

5 Awake, you{+} drunkards, and weep; and wail, all you{+} drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine; for it is cut off from your{+} mouth.

6 For a nation has come up on my land, strong, and without number; his teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the jaw-teeth of a lioness.

7 He has laid my vine waste, and barked my fig-tree: he has made it clean bare, and cast it away; its branches are made white.

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

9 The meal-offering and the drink-offering are cut off from the house of Yahweh; the priests, Yahweh's ministers, mourn.

10 The field is laid waste, the land mourns; for the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, the oil languishes.

11 Be confounded, O you{+} husbandmen, wail, O you{+} vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field has perished.

12 The vine is withered, and the fig-tree languishes; the pomegranate-tree, the palm-tree also, and the apple-tree, even all the trees of the field are withered: for joy has withered away from the sons of man.

13 Gird yourselves [with sackcloth], and lament, 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 the house of your{+} God.

14 Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the old men [and] all the inhabitants of the land to the house of Yahweh your{+} God, and cry to Yahweh.

15 Alas for the day! For the day of Yahweh is at hand, and as destruction from the Almighty it will come.

16 Is not the food cut off before our eyes, [yes], joy and gladness from the house of our God?

17 The seeds rot under their clods; the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the grain is withered.

18 How the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yes, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.

19 O Yahweh, to you I will cry; for the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame has burned all the trees of the field.

20 Yes, the beasts of the field pant to you; for the water brooks are dried up, and the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.