Chapter 1

¹The Word of Yahweh that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel.

²Hear this, you elders,

And listen, all you inhabitants of the land.

Has this ever happened in your days,

Or in the days of your fathers?

³Tell your children about it,

And have your children tell their children,

And their children, another generation.

⁴What the swarming locust has left, the great locust has eaten.

What the great locust has left, the grasshopper has eaten.

What the grasshopper has left, the caterpillar has eaten.

⁵Wake up, you drunkards, and weep!

Wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine;

For it is cut off from your mouth.

⁶For a nation has come up on my land, strong, and without number.

His teeth are the teeth of a lion,

And he has the fangs of a lioness.

⁷He has laid my vine waste,

And stripped my fig tree.

He has stripped its bark, and thrown it away.

Its branches are made white.

⁸Mourn like a virgin dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth! ⁹The meal offering and the drink offering are cut off from Yahweh’s house.

The priests, Yahweh’s ministers, mourn.

¹⁰The field is laid waste.

The land mourns, for the grain is destroyed,

The new wine has dried up,

And the oil languishes.

¹¹Be confounded, you farmers!

Wail, you vineyard keepers;

For the wheat and for the barley;

For the harvest of the field has perished.

¹²The vine has dried up, and the fig tree withered;

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

Even all of the trees of the field are withered;

For joy has withered away from the sons of men.

¹³Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests!

Wail, you ministers of the altar.

Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God,

For the meal offering and the drink offering are withheld from your God’s house.

¹⁴Sanctify a fast.

Call a solemn assembly.

Gather the elders,

And all the inhabitants of the land, to the house of Yahweh, your God,

And cry to Yahweh.

¹⁵Alas for the day!

For the day of Yahweh is at hand,

And it will come as destruction from the Almighty.

¹⁶Isn’t the food cut off before our eyes;

Joy and gladness from the house of our God?

¹⁷The seeds rot under their clods.

The granaries are laid desolate.

The barns are broken down, for the grain has withered.

¹⁸How the animals groan!

The herds of livestock are perplexed, because they have no pasture.

Yes, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.

¹⁹Yahweh, I cry to you,

For the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness,

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

²⁰Yes, the animals of the field pant to you,

For the water brooks have dried up,

And the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.