[1] The word of the Lord which came to Joel, the son of Pethuel. [2] Give
ear to this, you old men, and take note, you people of the land. Has this
ever been in your days, or in the days of your fathers? [3] Give the story
of it to your children, and let them give it to their children, and their
children to another generation. [4] What the worm did not make a meal of,
has been taken by the locust; and what the locust did not take, has been
food for the plant-worm; and what the plant-worm did not take, has been
food for the field-fly. [5] Come out of your sleep, you who are overcome
with wine, and give yourselves to weeping; give cries of sorrow, all you
drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine; for it has been cut off from
your mouths. [6] For a nation has come up over my land, strong and without
number; his teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the back teeth of a
great lion. [7] By him my vine is made waste and my fig-tree broken: he has
taken all its fruit and sent it down to the earth; its branches are made
white. [8] Make sounds of grief like a virgin dressed in haircloth for the
husband of her early years. [9] The meal offering and the drink offering
have been cut off from the house of the Lord; the priests, the Lord's
servants, are sorrowing. [10] The fields are wasted, the land has become
dry; for the grain is wasted, the new wine is kept back, the oil is poor.
[11] The farmers are shamed, the workers in the vine-gardens give cries of
grief, for the wheat and the barley; for the produce of the fields has come
to destruction. [12] The vine has become dry and the fig-tree is feeble;
the pomegranate and the palm-tree and the apple-tree, even all the trees of
the field, are dry: because joy has gone from the sons of men. [13] Put
haircloth round you and give yourselves to sorrow, you priests; give cries
of grief, you servants of the altar: come in, and, clothed in haircloth,
let the night go past, you servants of my God: for the meal offering and
the drink offering have been kept back from the house of your God. [14] Let
a time be fixed for going without food, have a holy meeting, let the old
men, even all the people of the land, come together to the house of the
Lord your God, crying out to the Lord. [15] Sorrow for the day! for the day
of the Lord is near, and as destruction from the Ruler of all it will come.
[16] Is not food cut off before our eyes? joy and delight from the house of
our God? [17] The grains have become small and dry under the spade; the
store-houses are made waste, the grain-stores are broken down; for the
grain is dry and dead. [18] What sounds of pain come from the beasts! the
herds of cattle are at a loss because there is no grass for them; even the
flocks of sheep are no longer to be seen. [19] O Lord, my cry goes up to
you: for fire has put an end to the grass-lands of the waste, and all the
trees of the field are burned with its flame. [20] The beasts of the field
are turning to you with desire: for the water-streams are dry and fire has
put an end to the grass-lands of the waste.
