The Devastation by Locusts

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

2Hear this, you elders,

And listen, all inhabitants of the land.

Has anything like this happened in your days,

Or in your fathers’ days?

3Tell your sons about it,

And have your sons tell their sons,

And their sons the next generation.

4What the gnawing locust has left, the [a]swarming locust has eaten;

And what the swarming locust has left, the creeping locust has eaten;

And what the creeping locust has left, the stripping locust has eaten.

5Awake, you heavy drinkers, and weep;

And wail, all you wine drinkers,

Because of the sweet wine,

For it has been eliminated from your mouth.

6For a nation has [b]invaded my land,

Mighty and without number;

Its teeth are the teeth of a lion,

And it has the jaws of a lioness.

7It has made my vine a waste

And my fig tree a stump.

It has stripped them bare and hurled them away;

Their branches have become white.

8Wail like a virgin clothed with sackcloth

For the groom of her youth.

9The grain offering and the drink offering have been cut off

From the house of the LORD.

The priests mourn,

The ministers of the LORD.

10The field is ruined,

The land mourns;

For the grain is ruined,

The new wine has dried up,

Fresh oil has [c]failed.

11Be ashamed, you farm workers,

Wail, you vinedressers,

For the wheat and the barley;

Because the harvest of the field is destroyed.

12The vine has dried up

And the fig tree has withered;

The pomegranate, the palm also, and the apple tree,

All the trees of the field have dried up.

Indeed, joy has dried up

From the sons of mankind.

13Put on sackcloth

And mourn, you priests;

Wail, you ministers of the altar!

Come, spend the night in sackcloth,

You ministers of my God,

For the grain offering and the drink offering

Have been withheld from the house of your God.

Starvation and Drought