Joel 1:2 - 1:12

Hear this, O elders,

And give ear, all inhabitants of the land.

Has anything like this happened in your days

Or in your fathers’ days?

Recount about it to your sons,

And let your sons recount about it to their sons,

And their sons to the next generation.

What the gnawing locust has left, the swarming locust has consumed;

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

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

Awake, drunkards, and weep;

And wail, all you wine drinkers,

On account of the sweet wine

That is cut off from your mouth.

For a nation has come up against my land,

Mighty and without number;

Its teeth are the teeth of a lion,

And it has the fangs of a lioness.

It has made my vine a desolation

And my fig tree splinters.

It has stripped them bare and cast them away;

Their branches have become white.

Wail like a virgin girded with sackcloth

For the bridegroom of her youth.

The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off

From the house of Yahweh.

The priests mourn,

The ministers of Yahweh.

The field is destroyed;

The land mourns,

For the grain is destroyed,

The new wine dries up,

Fresh oil fails.

Be ashamed, O farmers,

Wail, O vinedressers,

For the wheat and the barley,

Because the harvest of the field perishes.

The vine dries up,

And the fig tree fails;

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

All the trees of the field dry up.

Indeed, rejoicing dries up

From the sons of men.