Joel 1

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

2Hear this, you elders, and give ear, all inhabitants of the land: Has this happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers?

3Tell your children about it, and let your children tell their children, and their children tell another generation.

4What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust ate; and what the swarming locust left, the hopping locust ate; and what the hopping locust left, the devouring locust ate.

5Wake up, you drunkards, and weep; wail, all you drinkers of wine, over the sweet wine, because it has been cut off from your mouth.

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

7It has made my vine a desolation and my fig tree splinters; it has stripped it bare and thrown it down; its branches have turned white.

8Wail like a virgin clothed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

9The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of Yahweh; the priests mourn, the ministers of Yahweh.

10The field is devastated; the ground mourns, for the grain is devastated, the new wine has dried up, the oil has failed.

11Be ashamed, farmers; wail, vinedressers, over the wheat and over the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished.

12The vine has dried up, and the fig tree has withered; the pomegranate, also the palm and the apple tree—all the trees of the field have dried up. Indeed, joy has dried up from the sons of man.

13Gird yourselves and mourn, O priests; wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, because grain offering and drink offering are withheld from the house of your God.

14Consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders, all the inhabitants of the land, to the house of Yahweh your God, and cry out to Yahweh.

15Alas for the day! For the day of Yahweh is near, and it comes like destruction from the Almighty.

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

17The seeds have shriveled beneath their clods; the storehouses are desolate, the granaries are torn down, because the grain has dried up.

18How the animals groan! The herds of cattle wander in confusion, because there is no pasture for them; even the flocks of sheep suffer.

19To you, O Yahweh, I call, for fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and flame has scorched all the trees of the field.

20Even the beasts of the field pant for you, because the channels of water have dried up, and fire has consumed the pastures of the wilderness.