Joel 1

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

A Lament Over the Land

²Hear this, O elders,

Has this happened in your days?

³Tell it to your children,

⁴What the cutting locust left,

What the swarming locust left,

And what the hopping locust left,

⁵Wake up, drunkards, and weep!

Wail, all drinkers of wine, over the new wine,

⁶Because a nation has invaded my land,[#Literally “come up against”]

Its teeth are the teeth of a lion,

⁷It has made my vine a desolation,

It has stripped them bare and thrown them down;

⁸Lament like a virgin girded in sackcloth

⁹The offering and libation are withheld

The priests mourn,

¹⁰The field is destroyed;

because the grain is destroyed,

¹¹Be ashamed, farmers;

over the wheat and over the barley,

¹²The vine withers

The pomegranate tree, and also the palm tree, the apple tree

Indeed, joy is dried up

¹³Gird yourselves and lament, O priests!

Come spend the night in sackcloth,

because offering and libation

¹⁴Solemnize a fast!

Gather the elders,

in the house of Yahweh your God,

¹⁵Ah! For the day!

For the day of Yahweh is near.

¹⁶Is not food cut off

from the house of our God,

¹⁷The seeds shrivel under their clods;

The grain storage places are destroyed

¹⁸How the beasts groan;[#Hebrew “beast”]

because there is no pasture for them;

¹⁹To you, O Yahweh, I cry out,

because fire has devoured

and flames burned

²⁰Also, the beasts of the field

because the courses of water

and fire has devoured