[0] Sama'ria shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled against her
God; they shall fall by the sword, their little ones shall be dashed in
pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open. [1] The word of the LORD that
came to Joel, the son of Pethu'el: [2] Hear this, you aged men, give ear,
all inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing happened in your days, or in
the days of your fathers? [3] Tell your children of it, and let your
children tell their children, and their children another generation. [4]
What 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. [5] Awake, you drunkards, and
weep; and wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine, for it
is cut off from your mouth. [6] For a nation has come up against my land,
powerful and without number; its teeth are lions' teeth, and it has the
fangs of a lioness. [7] It has laid waste my vines, and splintered my fig
trees; it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down; their branches
are made white. [8] Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the
bridegroom of her youth. [9] The cereal offering and the drink offering are
cut off from the house of the LORD. The priests mourn, the ministers of the
LORD. [10] The fields are laid waste, the ground mourns; because the grain
is destroyed, the wine fails, the oil languishes. [11] Be confounded, O
tillers of the soil, wail, O vinedressers, for the wheat and the barley;
because the harvest of the field has perished. [12] The vine withers, the
fig tree languishes. Pomegranate, palm, and apple, all the trees of the
field are withered; and gladness fails from the sons of men. [13] Gird 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 cereal offering
and drink offering are withheld from the house of your God. [14] Sanctify 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 to the LORD. [15] Alas
for the day! For the day of the LORD is near, and as destruction from the
Almighty it comes. [16] Is not the food cut off before our eyes, joy and
gladness from the house of our God? [17] The seed shrivels under the clods,
the storehouses are desolate; the granaries are ruined because the grain
has failed. [18] How the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are perplexed
because there is no pasture for them; even the flocks of sheep are
dismayed. [19] Unto thee, O LORD, I cry. For fire has devoured the pastures
of the wilderness, and flame has burned all the trees of the field. [20]
Even the wild beasts cry to thee because the water brooks are dried up, and
fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.
