1 The Word of Jehovah 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 even in the days of your fathers?

3 Tell your sons about it, and your sons to their sons, and their sons to another generation.

4 What was left by the chewing locust, the swarming locust ate; and that left by the swarming locust, the locust larvae ate; and that left by the locust larvae, the consuming locust ate.

5 Awake, you drunkards, and weep. And wail, all you wine drinkers, because of the new wine, for it is cut off from your mouth.

6 For a nation has come up against my land, strong and without number; its teeth are the teeth of a lion, and it has the fangs of a lioness.

7 He has made My vine desolation, and he has splintered My fig tree. He has stripped it bare, and thrown it down; its branches grow white.

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

9 The food offering and the drink offering have been cut off from the house of Jehovah; the priests, Jehovah’s ministers, mourn.

10 The field is wasted; the land mourns, for the grain is wasted. The new wine is dried up, the oil tree droops.

11 Be dried up, you farmers, howl, you vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field has perished.

12 The vine is dried up and the fig tree droops, the pomegranate, and the palm tree, and the apple tree; all the trees of the field are dried up, because joy has dried up from the sons of men.

13 Gird yourselves and lament, you priests. Howl, you ministers of the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you who serve my God. For the food offering and the drink offering are held back from the house of your God.

14 Consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the elders, all the inhabitants of the land, into the house of Jehovah your God, and cry unto Jehovah.

15 Alas for the day! For the day of Jehovah is at hand. And it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.

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

17 The seed shrivels under their clods; the storehouses are laid waste, the granaries are broken down, for the grain has dried up.

18 How the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture. Even the flocks of sheep suffer punishment.

19 O Jehovah, to You I will cry, for the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and has burned all the trees of the field.

20 The beasts of the field also pant after You, for the rivers of water are dried up, and the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.