1 This is the word of Yahweh that came to Joel, son of Pethuel.
The attack of the locusts
2 Hear this, you elders!
Listen, all you, land dwellers!
Has such happened in your days or in the days of your ancestors?
3 Tell it to your children, then your children to their children, and then their children to the next generation.
4 What the cutting locusts left, the swarming locusts ate. What the swarming locusts left, the hopping locusts ate. What the hopping locusts left, the destroying locusts ate.
5 Wake up, drunkards, and weep! Wail, drink ers of wine, because of the sweet wine withheld from your mouths.
6 A nation numerous and mighty has invaded my country.
It has the teeth of a lion and the fangs of a lioness.
7 It has destroyed my vines and ruined my fig trees. It has stripped off their bark and left white their branches.
8 Mourn like a virgin in sackcloth, grieving for the husband of her youth.
9 Grain and drink offerings are not found in the House of Yahweh. The priests who minister before Yahweh are in mourning.
10 The fields are in ruin, the earth mourns, for the grain is destroyed; the wine fails and the oil dries up.
11 Grieve, O you farmers; wail, O you vine growers, over the barley and the wheat, for the harvest of the field has perished.
12 The vine withers, the fig tree wilts away; pomegranate, palm and apple – all the trees of the field dry up. Oh, how joy has faded away among all these people!
13 Gird yourselves, O priests, and weep; mourn, O ministers of the altar. Come, spend the night in sack cloth, O ministers of my God! For the house of your God is deprived of grain and drink offering.
14 Proclaim a fast, call an assembly. Summon the elders and all who live in the land into the house of your God,
14 and cry out to Yahweh,
15 “What a dreadful day – the day of Yahweh that draws near and comes as ruin from the Almighty!”
16 Has not the food been taken away from us before our very eyes, and joy and gladness too from the house of our God?
17 The seed under the clods lies shriveled; the granaries are in ruins, the barns are broken down, for the harvest has dried up.
18 How the cattle groan! The herds wander and moan, for they have no pasture. Even the flocks of sheep suffer.
19 To you, Yahweh, I call. Fire has razed the open pasture; flames have burned the trees.
20 Even wild beasts cry out to you for the streams have dried up, for the pastures have been devoured by fire.