1The word of the LORD that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel:

An Invasion of Locusts

2Hear this, you elders;

give ear, all inhabitants of the land!

Has such a thing happened in your days,

or in the days of your fathers?

3Tell your children of it,

and let your children tell their children,

and their children to another generation.

4What the cutting locust left,

the swarming locust has eaten.

What the swarming locust left,

the hopping locust has eaten,

and what the hopping locust left,

the destroying locust has eaten.

5Awake, you drunkards, and weep,

and wail, all you drinkers of wine,

because of the sweet wine,

for it is cut off from your mouth.

6For a nation has come up against my land,

powerful and beyond number;

its teeth are lions' teeth,

and it has the fangs of a lioness.

7It has laid waste my vine

and splintered my fig tree;

it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down;

their branches are made white.

8Lament like a virgin1:8 Or young woman wearing sackcloth

for the bridegroom of her youth.

9The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off

from the house of the LORD.

The priests mourn,

the ministers of the LORD.

10The fields are destroyed,

the ground mourns,

because the grain is destroyed,

the wine dries up,

the oil languishes.

11Be ashamed,1:11 The Hebrew words for dry up and be ashamed in verses 10–12, 17 sound alike O tillers of the soil;

wail, O vine dressers,

for the wheat and the barley,

because the harvest of the field has perished.

12The vine dries up;

the fig tree languishes.

Pomegranate, palm, and apple,

all the trees of the field are dried up,

and gladness dries up

from the children of man.

A Call to Repentance

13Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests;

wail, O ministers of the altar.

Go in, pass the night in sackcloth,

O ministers of my God!

Because grain offering and drink offering

are withheld from the house of your God.

14Consecrate a fast;

call a solemn assembly.

Gather the elders

and all the inhabitants of the land

to the house of the LORD your God,

and cry out to the LORD.

15Alas for the day!

For the day of the LORD is near,

and as destruction from the Almighty1:15 Destruction sounds like the Hebrew for Almighty it comes.

16Is not the food cut off

before our eyes,

joy and gladness

from the house of our God?

17The seed shrivels under the clods;1:17 The meaning of the Hebrew line is uncertain

the storehouses are desolate;

the granaries are torn down

because the grain has dried up.

18How the beasts groan!

The herds of cattle are perplexed

because there is no pasture for them;

even the flocks of sheep suffer.1:18 Or are made desolate

19To you, O LORD, I call.

For fire has devoured

the pastures of the wilderness,

and flame has burned

all the trees of the field.

20Even the beasts of the field pant for you

because the water brooks are dried up,

and fire has devoured

the pastures of the wilderness.