Joel 1 / 3
- 1The word of the LORD that came to Joel son of Pethuel. ( An Invasion of Locusts )
- 2Hear 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?
- 3Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation.
- 4What 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.
- 5Wake 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.
- 6A nation has invaded my land, powerful and without number; it has the teeth of a lion, the fangs of a lioness.
- 7It has laid waste my vines and ruined my fig trees. It has stripped off their bark and thrown it away, leaving their branches white.
- 8Mourn like a virgin in sackcloth grieving for the husband of her youth.
- 9Grain offerings and drink offerings are cut off from the house of the LORD . The priests are in mourning, those who minister before the LORD .
- 10The fields are ruined, the ground is dried up ; the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, the oil fails.
- 11Despair, you farmers, wail, you vine growers; grieve for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field is destroyed.
- 12The 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. ( A Call to Repentance )
- 13Put 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.
- 14Declare 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 .
- 15Alas for that day! For the day of the LORD is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty.
- 16Has not the food been cut off before our very eyes- joy and gladness from the house of our God?
- 17The seeds are shriveled beneath the clods. The storehouses are in ruins, the granaries have been broken down, for the grain has dried up.
- 18How the cattle moan! The herds mill about because they have no pasture; even the flocks of sheep are suffering.
- 19To you, O LORD , I call, for fire has devoured the open pastures and flames have burned up all the trees of the field.
- 20Even the wild animals pant for you; the streams of water have dried up and fire has devoured the open pastures.