Joel1
1The word of Yahweh that came to Joel son of Pethuel.
A Lament Over the Land
2Hear this, O elders,and give ear, all the inhabitants of the land.Has this happened in your days?Or the days of your ancestors?3Tell it to your children,and your children to their children,and their children to the following generation.4What the cutting locust left,the swarming locust has eaten.What the swarming locust left,the hopping locust has eaten.And what the hopping locust left,the destroying locust has eaten.5Wake up, drunkards, and weep!Wail, all drinkers of wine, over the new wine,for it is cut off from your mouth.6Because a nation has ⸤invaded⸥ my land,strong ⸤and beyond counting⸥. Its teeth are the teeth of a lion,and its fangs are those of a lioness.7It has made my vine a desolation,and my fig tree a completely splintered stump.It has stripped them bare and thrown them down;their branches have turned white.8Lament like a virgin girded in sackclothfor the husband of her youth.9The offering and libation are withheldfrom the house of Yahweh.The priests mourn,the ministers of Yahweh.10The field is destroyed;the earth mournsbecause the grain is destroyed,the new wine dries up,the olive oil languishes.11Be ashamed, farmers;Wail, vinedressers,over the wheat and over the barley,because the harvest of the field is ruined.12The vine withersand the fig tree droops.The pomegranate tree, and also the palm tree, the apple tree—all the trees of the field—are dried up.Indeed, joy is dried upamong the sons of men.13Gird yourselves and lament, O priests!Wail, O ministers of the altar!Come spend the night in sackcloth,O ministers of my God,because offering and libationare withheld from the house of your God.14Solemnize a fast!Call an assembly!Gather the elders,all of the inhabitants of the landin the house of Yahweh your God,and cry out to Yahweh.15Ah! For the day!For the day of Yahweh is near.It will come like destruction from Shaddai. 16Is not food cut offbefore our eyes,from the house of our God,joy and gladness?17The seeds shrivel under their clods;the storehouses are desolate.The grain storage places are destroyedbecause grain has dried out.18How the beasts groan;the herds of cattle wander aroundbecause there is no pasture for them;the flocks of sheep are in distress.19To you, O Yahweh, I cry out,because fire has devouredthe pastures of the desert,and flames burnedall the trees of the field.20Also, the beasts of the fieldlong for you,because the courses of waterare dried up,and fire has devouredthe pastures of the desert.Logos Bible Software