Joel 1:1-13 ▼

1 This is the word of the LORD {YHWH} that came to Joel (YHWH is God) son of Pethuel (vision of God):

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 {YHWH}; 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.

13 Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests; wail, O ministers of the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my God {Elohay}, because the grain and drink offerings are withheld from the house of your⁺ God.