| New Living Translation | English Standard Version |
| 1The LORD gave this message to Joel son of Pethuel. Mourning over the Locust Plague | 1The word of the LORD that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel: |
| 2Hear this, you leaders of the people. Listen, all who live in the land. In all your history, has anything like this happened before? | 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 about it in the years to come, and let your children tell their children. Pass the story down from generation to generation. | 3Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children to another generation. |
| 4After the cutting locusts finished eating the crops, the swarming locusts took what was left! After them came the hopping locusts, and then the stripping locusts, too! | 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. |
| 5Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you wine-drinkers! All the grapes are ruined, and all your sweet wine is gone. | 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. |
| 6A vast army of locusts has invaded my land, a terrible army too numerous to count. Its teeth are like lions’ teeth, its fangs like those of a lioness. | 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 destroyed my grapevines and ruined my fig trees, stripping their bark and destroying it, leaving the branches white and bare. | 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. |
| 8Weep like a bride dressed in black, mourning the death of her husband. | 8Lament like a virgin wearing sackcloth for the bridegroom of her youth. |
| 9For there is no grain or wine to offer at the Temple of the LORD. So the priests are in mourning. The ministers of the LORD are weeping. | 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 ruined, the land is stripped bare. The grain is destroyed, the grapes have shriveled, and the olive oil is gone. | 10The fields are destroyed, the ground mourns, because the grain is destroyed, the wine dries up, the oil languishes. |
| 11Despair, all you farmers! Wail, all you vine growers! Weep, because the wheat and barley— all the crops of the field—are ruined. | 11Be ashamed, O tillers of the soil; wail, O vinedressers, for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished. |
| 12The grapevines have dried up, and the fig trees have withered. The pomegranate trees, palm trees, and apple trees— all the fruit trees—have dried up. And the people’s joy has dried up with them. | 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. |
| 13Dress yourselves in burlap and weep, you priests! Wail, you who serve before the altar! Come, spend the night in burlap, you ministers of my God. For there is no grain or wine to offer at the Temple of your God. | 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. |
| 14Announce a time of fasting; call the people together for a solemn meeting. Bring the leaders and all the people of the land into the Temple of the LORD your God, and cry out to him there. | 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. |
| 15The day of the LORD is near, the day when destruction comes from the Almighty. How terrible that day will be! | 15Alas for the day! For the day of the LORD is near, and as destruction from the Almighty it comes. |
| 16Our food disappears before our very eyes. No joyful celebrations are held in the house of our God. | 16Is not the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God? |
| 17The seeds die in the parched ground, and the grain crops fail. The barns stand empty, and granaries are abandoned. | 17The seed shrivels under the clods; the storehouses are desolate; the granaries are torn down because the grain has dried up. |
| 18How the animals moan with hunger! The herds of cattle wander about confused, because they have no pasture. The flocks of sheep and goats bleat in misery. | 18How the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are perplexed because there is no pasture for them; even the flocks of sheep suffer. |
| 19LORD, help us! The fire has consumed the wilderness pastures, and flames have burned up all the trees. | 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 wild animals cry out to you because the streams have dried up, and fire has consumed the wilderness pastures. | 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. |
| Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. | ESV Text Edition: 2016. The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®) copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. The ESV® text has been reproduced in cooperation with and by permission of Good News Publishers. Unauthorized reproduction of this publication is prohibited. All rights reserved. |
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