The Invasion of Locusts

1The word of Jehovah which was to Joel son of Pethuel.

2Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the earth. Was this in your days, and if in the days of your fathers?

3Concerning it recount to your sons, and your sons to their sons, and their sons to another generation.

4The residue of the creeping locust the common locust ate; and the residue of the common locust the feeder ate; and the residue of the feeder the devourer ate.

5Awake, ye intoxicated, and weep; and wail, all ye drinking wine, on account of the new wine, for it was cut off from your mouth.

6For a nation came up upon my land, strong, and no number; his teeth the teeth of a lion, and a biter's teeth of the lioness to him.

7He set my vine for destruction, and my fig tree for breaking: he stripped off its covering and cast away; and its shoots were whitened.

A Call to Mourning

8Wail as the virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

9The gift was cut off and the libation from the house of Jehovah; mourn, ye priests serving Jehovah.

10The field was laid waste, the land mourned; for the grain was laid waste, the new wine was dried up, the new oil languished.

11The husbandmen were ashamed; wail, ye vine-dressers, for the wheat and for the barley, for the harvest of the field perished.

12The vine was dried up, and the fig tree languished; the pomegranate, also the palm tree and the apple tree; all the trees of the field were dried up, for joy was dried up from the sons of man.

A Call to Repentance
(Amos 5:4–15; Zephaniah 2:1–3; Luke 13:1–5)

13Be ye girded and lament, ye priests: wail, ye, serving the altar: come in, pass the night in sackcloth, ye serving God: for the gift and the libation were withheld from the house of your God.

14Consecrate a fast, call an assembly, gather together the old men, all the inhabitants of the land to the house of Jehovah your God, and cry to Jehovah.

15Alas! for the day: for the day of Jehovah is near, and as destruction from the Almighty shall it come.

16Was not the food cut off before our eyes, from the house of our God, joy and gladness?

17The kernels died beneath the clods, the treasures were laid waste, the garners were pulled down, for the grain was dried up.

18How the beasts groaned! the herds of oxen wept, for no pasture to them; also the flocks of sheep were laid waste.

19To thee, O Jehovah, will I call: for a fire consumed the habitations of the desert, and the flame burned all the trees of the field.

20Also the beasts of the field will look up to thee: for the channels of waters were dried up, and the fire devoured the habitations of the desert.