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Joel 1

The Devastation by Locusts

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

2Hear this, you elders,

And listen, all inhabitants of the land.

Has anything like this happened in your days,

Or in your fathers’ days?

3Tell your sons about it,

And have your sons tell their sons,

And their sons the next generation.

4What the gnawing locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten;

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

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

5Awake, you heavy drinkers, and weep;

And wail, all you wine drinkers,

Because of the sweet wine,

For it has been eliminated from your mouth.

6For a nation has invaded my land,

Mighty and without number;

Its teeth are the teeth of a lion,

And it has the jaws of a lioness.

7It has made my vine a waste

And my fig tree a stump.

It has stripped them bare and hurled them away;

Their branches have become white.

8Wail like a virgin clothed with sackcloth

For the groom of her youth.

9The grain offering and the drink offering have been cut off

From the house of the Lord.

The priests mourn,

The ministers of the Lord.

10The field is ruined,

The land mourns;

For the grain is ruined,

The new wine has dried up,

Fresh oil has failed.

11Be ashamed, you farm workers,

Wail, you vinedressers,

For the wheat and the barley;

Because the harvest of the field is destroyed.

12The vine has dried up

And the fig tree has withered;

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

All the trees of the field have dried up.

Indeed, joy has dried up

From the sons of mankind.

13Put on sackcloth

And mourn, you priests;

Wail, you ministers of the altar!

Come, spend the night in sackcloth,

You ministers of my God,

For the grain offering and the drink offering

Have been withheld from the house of your God.

Starvation and Drought

14Consecrate a fast,

Proclaim a solemn assembly;

Gather the elders

And all the inhabitants of the land

To the house of the Lord your God,

And cry out to the Lord.

15Woe for the day!

For the day of the Lord is near,

And it will come as destruction from the Almighty.

16Has food not been cut off before our eyes, and

Joy and rejoicing from the house of our God?

17The seeds have dried up under their shovels;

The storehouses have become desolate,

The grain silos are ruined,

Because the grain has dried up.

18How the animals have groaned!

The herds of cattle have wandered aimlessly

Because there is no pasture for them;

Even the flocks of sheep have suffered.

19To You, Lord, I cry out;

For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness,

And the flame has burned up all the trees of the field.

20Even the animals of the field pant for You;

For the stream beds of water are dried up,

And fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

Joel

Chapter 1

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