1The word of the LORD that came to Joel the son of Pethuel.
2Hear this, you old men. Listen, all you who live in the land. Has anything like this happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers?
3Tell your children about it. Let your children tell their children, and their children tell the next generation.
4What the palmerworm left, the locust has eaten. What the locust left, the cankerworm has eaten. What the cankerworm left, the caterpillar has eaten.
5Wake up, you drunkards, and weep. Wail, all you who drink wine, because of the new wine, for it is taken away from your mouth.
6A nation has come up against my land. It is strong, and there is no counting it. Its teeth are the teeth of a lion, and it has the jaw teeth of a great lion.
7It has ruined my vine and stripped the bark from my fig tree. It has made it completely bare and thrown it down. Its branches are left white.
8Mourn like a young woman dressed in sackcloth, weeping for the husband she married when she was young.
9The food offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of the LORD. The priests, the LORD's ministers, are mourning.
10The field is ruined, the land mourns. The grain is ruined, the new wine has dried up, the oil fails.
11Be ashamed, you farmers. Wail, you who tend the vines, for the wheat and for the barley, because the harvest of the field has been destroyed.
12The vine has dried up, and the fig tree is failing. The pomegranate tree, the palm tree, and the apple tree, all the trees of the field, have withered. For joy has withered away from the people.
13Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests. Wail, you who serve at the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God. For the food offering and the drink offering are kept back from the house of your God.
14Set apart a time of fasting. Call a solemn meeting. Gather the elders and all who live in the land into the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD.
15Alas for the day! The day of the LORD is near. It will come as destruction from the Almighty.
16Has not the food been cut off before our eyes? Have not joy and gladness been cut off from the house of our God?
17The seed has rotted under the lumps of soil. The storehouses are left empty, the barns are broken down, for the grain has withered.
18How the animals groan! The herds of cattle wander in confusion, because they have no pasture. The flocks of sheep are left to suffer.
19O LORD, I will cry out to you. For fire has eaten up the pastures of the wilderness, and flames have burned all the trees of the field.
20The wild animals also cry out to you. For the streams of water have dried up, and fire has eaten up the pastures of the wilderness.