Joel 1:1-12 ▼

1 This is the word of the LORD that came to Joel son of Pethuel:

2 Hear this, O elders; and give ear, all who dwell in the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your fathers?

3 Tell it to your children; let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation.

4 What the devouring locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; what the swarming locust has left, the young locust has eaten; and what the young locust has left, the destroying locust has eaten.

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

6 For a nation has invaded My land, powerful and without number; its teeth are the teeth of a lion, and its fangs are the fangs of a lioness.

7 It has laid waste My grapevine and splintered My fig tree. It has stripped off the bark and thrown it away; the branches have turned white.

8 Wail like a virgin dressed in sackcloth, grieving for the husband of her youth.

9 Grain and drink offerings have been cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests are in mourning, those who minister before the LORD.

10 The field is ruined; the land mourns. For the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, and the oil fails.

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

12 The grapevine is dried up, and the fig tree is withered; the pomegranate, palm, and apple—all the trees of the orchard—are withered. Surely the joy of mankind has dried up.