^1. The word of the LORD that came to Joel son of Pethuel.

^2. Hear this, you elders; listen, all who live in the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your forefathers?

^3. Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation.

^4. What the locust swarm has left the great locusts have eaten; what the great locusts have left the young locusts have eaten; what the young locusts have left other locusts [1] have eaten.

^5. Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you drinkers of wine; wail because of the new wine, for it has been snatched from your lips.

^6. A nation has invaded my land, powerful and without number; it has the teeth of a lion, the fangs of a lioness.

^7. It has laid waste my vines and ruined my fig trees. It has stripped off their bark and thrown it away, leaving their branches white.

^8. Mourn like a virgin [3] in sackcloth grieving for the husband [2] of her youth.

^9. Grain offerings and drink offerings are cut off from the house of the LORD. The priests are in mourning, those who minister before the LORD.

^10. The fields are ruined, the ground is dried up [4] ; the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, the oil fails.

^11. Despair, you farmers, wail, you vine growers; grieve for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field is destroyed.

^12. The vine is dried up and the fig tree is withered; the pomegranate, the palm and the apple tree-- all the trees of the field--are dried up. Surely the joy of mankind is withered away.

^13. Put on sackcloth, O priests, and mourn; wail, you who minister before the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you who minister before my God; for the grain offerings and drink offerings are withheld from the house of your God.

^14. Declare a holy fast; call a sacred assembly. Summon the elders and all who live in the land to the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD.

^15. Alas for that day! For the day of the LORD is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty. [5]

^16. Has not the food been cut off before our very eyes-- joy and gladness from the house of our God?

^17. The seeds are shriveled beneath the clods. [6] The storehouses are in ruins, the granaries have been broken down, for the grain has dried up.

^18. How the cattle moan! The herds mill about because they have no pasture; even the flocks of sheep are suffering.

^19. To you, O LORD, I call, for fire has devoured the open pastures and flames have burned up all the trees of the field.

^20. Even the wild animals pant for you; the streams of water have dried up and fire has devoured the open pastures.