The Book of the Prophet Joel 1 The terrible famine caused by locusts and drought

 The Book of the Prophet Joel 1

The terrible famine caused by locusts and drought

1 The word of the Lord that came to Joel, son of Pethuel.

2 Hear this, you elders, and listen, all you inhabitants of the land: Has anything like this ever happened in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?

3 Tell your children about it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.

4 What the caterpillar left, the locust ate; what the locust left, the grasshopper ate; and what the grasshopper left, the cankerworm ate.

5 Wake up, you drunkards, and weep; wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the new wine, for it has been taken from your mouths.

6 For a nation has come up against my land, powerful and without number; its teeth are the teeth of a lion, and it has the jaws of a wild lion.

7 He has made my vine a desolation, and stripped my fig tree bare; he has utterly stripped it, and cast it down; its branches have become white.

8 Lament like a virgin clothed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

9 The grain offering and the drink offering have been cut off from the house of the Lord; the priests, the Lord’s ministers, mourn.

10 The field is desolate, the ground mourns; for the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, the oil fails.

11 The farmers are ashamed, the vinedressers groan, over the wheat and the barley; because the harvest of the field has perished.

12 The vine has dried up, the fig tree has withered; the pomegranate tree also, and the palm tree and the apple tree; all the trees of the field have dried up, and joy has dried up among the children of men.

13 Gird yourselves and lament, you priests; wail, you ministers of the altar; go in and spend the night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God; for the grain offering and the drink offering have been cut off from the house of your God.

14 Consecrate a fast, proclaim a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord.

15 Alas for that day! For the day of the Lord is near, and it will come like destruction from the Almighty.

16 Is not the food cut off before our eyes? Joy and gladness from the house of our God?

17 The seed has rotted under its clods, the barns are desolate, the storehouses are broken down, for the grain has dried up.

18 How the cattle groan! The herds of cattle are confused because they have no pasture; even the flocks of sheep are destroyed.

19 I cry out to you, O Lord, for fire has devoured the pastures of the desert, and the flame has burned up all the trees of the field.

20 Even all the animals of the field cry out to you; for the rivers have dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the desert.