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

An Invasion of Locusts

² 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 ancestors?
³ Tell it to your children,
and let your children tell it to their children,
and their children to the next generation.
⁴ 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.
⁵ 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.
⁶ A nation has invaded my land,
a mighty army without number;
it has the teeth of a lion,
the fangs of a lioness.
⁷ 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.
⁸ Mourn like a virgin in sackcloth
grieving for the betrothed of her youth.
⁹ 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.
¹⁰ The fields are ruined,
the ground is dried up;
the grain is destroyed,
the new wine is dried up,
the olive oil fails.
¹¹ Despair, you farmers,
wail, you vine growers;
grieve for the wheat and the barley,
because the harvest of the field is destroyed.
¹² 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 people’s joy
is withered away.

A Call to Lamentation

¹³ Put on sackcloth, you 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.
¹⁴ 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.
¹⁵ Alas for that day!
For the day of the Lord is near;
it will come like destruction from the Almighty.
¹⁶ Has not the food been cut off
before our very eyes-
joy and gladness
from the house of our God?
¹⁷ The seeds are shriveled
beneath the clods.
The storehouses are in ruins,
the granaries have been broken down,
for the grain has dried up.
¹⁸ How the cattle moan!
The herds mill about
because they have no pasture;
even the flocks of sheep are suffering.
¹⁹ To you, Lord, I call,
for fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness
and flames have burned up all the trees of the field.
²⁰ Even the wild animals pant for you;
the streams of water have dried up
and fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness.