Joel 1

The Locusts Bring Desolation

¹The word of Yahweh that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel:[#1:1 The personal covenant name of God, a form of I AM WHO I AM, cf. Ex 3:14-15]

²Hear this, O elders,

And give ear, all inhabitants of the land.

Has anything like this happened in your days

Or in your fathers’ days?

³Recount about it to your sons,

And let your sons recount about it to their sons,

And their sons to the next generation.

⁴¶What the gnawing locust has left, the swarming locust has consumed;

And what the swarming locust has left, the creeping locust has consumed;

And what the creeping locust has left, the stripping locust has consumed.

⁵Awake, drunkards, and weep;

And wail, all you wine drinkers,

On account of the sweet wine

That is cut off from your mouth.

⁶For a nation has come up against my land,

Mighty and without number;

Its teeth are the teeth of a lion,

And it has the fangs of a lioness.

⁷It has made my vine a desolation

And my fig tree splinters.

It has stripped them bare and cast them away;

Their branches have become white.

⁸¶Wail like a virgin girded with sackcloth

For the bridegroom of her youth.

⁹The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off

From the house of Yahweh.

The priests mourn,

The ministers of Yahweh.

¹⁰The field is destroyed;

The land mourns,

For the grain is destroyed,

The new wine dries up,

Fresh oil fails.

¹¹Be ashamed, O farmers,[#1:11 Or The farmers are ashamed, The vinedressers wail]

Wail, O vinedressers,

For the wheat and the barley,

Because the harvest of the field perishes.

¹²The vine dries up,

And the fig tree fails;

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

All the trees of the field dry up.

Indeed, rejoicing dries up

From the sons of men.

The Day of Yahweh Is Near

¹³¶Gird yourselves with sackcloth

And lament, O priests;

Wail, O ministers of the altar!

Come, spend the night in sackcloth,

O ministers of my God;

For the grain offering and the drink offering

Are withheld from the house of your God.

¹⁴Set apart a fast as holy,

Call for a solemn assembly;

Gather the elders

And all the inhabitants of the land

To the house of Yahweh your God,

And cry out to Yahweh.

¹⁵Alas for the day!

For the day of Yahweh is near,

And it will come as destruction from the Almighty.

¹⁶Has not food been cut off before our eyes,

Gladness and joy from the house of our God?

¹⁷The seeds shrivel under their clods;[#1:17 Or dried figs; #1:17 Or shovels]

The storehouses are desolate;

The barns are pulled down,

For the grain is dried up.

¹⁸How the beasts groan!

The herds of cattle wander aimlessly

Because there is no pasture for them;

Even the flocks of sheep suffer.

¹⁹To You, O Yahweh, I cry;

For fire has consumed the pastures of the wilderness,

And the flame has burned up all the trees of the field.

²⁰Even the beasts of the field pant for You;[#1:20 Lit long for]

For the water brooks are dried up,

And fire has consumed the pastures of the wilderness.