Joel 1:1-13 ▼

1 The word of Jehovah which was to Joel son of Pethuel.

2 Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the earth. Was this in your days, and if in the days of your fathers?

3 Concerning it recount to your sons, and your sons to their sons, and their sons to another generation.

4 The residue of the creeping locust the common locust ate; and the residue of the common locust the feeder ate; and the residue of the feeder the devourer ate.

5 Awake, ye intoxicated, and weep; and wail, all ye drinking wine, on account of the new wine, for it was cut off from your mouth.

6 For a nation came up upon my land, strong, and no number; his teeth the teeth of a lion, and a biter's teeth of the lioness to him.

7 He set my vine for destruction, and my fig tree for breaking: he stripped off its covering and cast away; and its shoots were whitened.

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

9 The gift was cut off and the libation from the house of Jehovah; mourn, ye priests serving Jehovah.

10 The field was laid waste, the land mourned; for the grain was laid waste, the new wine was dried up, the new oil languished.

11 The husbandmen were ashamed; wail, ye vine-dressers, for the wheat and for the barley, for the harvest of the field perished.

12 The vine was dried up, and the fig tree languished; the pomegranate, also the palm tree and the apple tree; all the trees of the field were dried up, for joy was dried up from the sons of man.

13 Be ye girded and lament, ye priests: wail, ye, serving the altar: come in, pass the night in sackcloth, ye serving God: for the gift and the libation were withheld from the house of your God.