Joel 1:1-12 ▼

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

2 Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?

3 Tell your children of it, and [let] your children [tell] their children, and their children another generation:

4 that which the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten.

5 Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine: for it is cut off from your mouth.

6 For a nation is come up upon my land, strong and without number: his teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth of a lioness.

7 He hath made my vine a desolation, and barked my fig-tree; he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away: its branches are made white.

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

9 The oblation and the drink-offering are cut off from the house of Jehovah; the priests, Jehovah's ministers, mourn.

10 The field is laid waste, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted, the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth.

11 Be ashamed, ye husbandmen; howl, ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley: because the harvest of the field hath perished.

12 The vine is dried up, and the fig-tree languisheth; the pomegranate-tree, the palm also and the apple-tree; all the trees of the field are withered, yea, joy is withered away from the children of men.