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

² Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Has this been in your days, or in the days of your fathers?

³ Tell ye your sons of it, and let your sons tell their sons, and their sons another generation.

⁴ That which the palmer-worm has left the locust has eaten, and that which the locust has left the canker-worm has eaten, and that which the canker-worm has left the caterpillar has eaten.

⁵ Awake, ye drunkards, and weep, and wail, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth.

⁶ For a nation has come up upon my land, strong, and without number. His teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the jaw-teeth of a lioness.

⁷ He has laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree. He has made it clean bare, and cast it away. The branches of it are made white.

⁸ Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

⁹ The meal offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of Jehovah. The priests, Jehovah's ministers, mourn.

¹⁰ The field is laid waste; the land mourns. For the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, the oil languishes.

¹¹ Be confounded, O ye husbandmen. Wail, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley, for the harvest of the field is perished.

¹² The vine is withered, and the fig tree languishes. The pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all the trees of the field are withered. For joy has withered away from the sons of men.

¹³ Gird yourselves with sackcloth, and lament, ye priests. Wail, ye ministers of the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God. For the meal offering and the drink offering are withheld from the house of your God.

¹⁴ Sanctify a fast. Call a solemn assembly. Gather the old men and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of Jehovah your God, and cry to Jehovah.

¹⁵ Alas for the day! For the day of Jehovah is at hand, and it shall come as destruction from the Almighty.

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

¹⁷ The seeds rot under their clods. The garners are laid desolate. The barns are broken down. For the grain is withered.

¹⁸ How do the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are perplexed because they have no pasture, yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.

¹⁹ O Jehovah, to thee do I cry. For the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame has burned all the trees of the field.

²⁰ Yea, the beasts of the field pant to thee, for the water brooks are dried up, and the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.