1The word of Yahweh that came to Joel son of Pethuel:
2Hear this, you elders, and give ear, all you inhabitants of the land: Has anything like this happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers?
3Tell your children about it, and let your children tell their children, and their children the next generation.
4What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust ate; and what the swarming locust left, the hopping locust ate; and what the hopping locust left, the devouring locust ate.
5Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you drinkers of wine, over the new wine, for it 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 a splintered stump; it has stripped it bare and cast it down; its branches have turned white.
8Wail like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.
9Grain offering and drink offering are cut off from the house of Yahweh; the priests mourn, the ministers of Yahweh.
10The field is devastated, the ground mourns; for the grain is devastated, the new wine dries up, the fresh oil languishes.
11Be ashamed, you farmers; wail, you vinedressers, over the wheat and over the barley; for the harvest of the field has perished.
12The vine dries up and the fig tree languishes; pomegranate, palm, and apple—all the trees of the field are dried up; indeed, joy withers away from the children of humankind.
13Gird yourselves and lament, you priests; wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, for grain offering and drink offering are withheld from the house of your God.
14Consecrate a fast, proclaim a solemn assembly; gather the elders, 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 comes like destruction from the Almighty.
16Has not the food been cut off before our very eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God?
17The seeds shrivel under their clods; the storehouses are laid waste, the granaries torn down, for the grain has dried up.
18How the beasts groan! The herds of cattle wander in confusion because they have no pasture; even the flocks of sheep suffer.
19To you, Yahweh, I call out, for fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and flame has scorched all the trees of the field.
20Even the beasts of the field pant for you, for the channels of water have dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.
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