1 THE word of the LORD that came to Joel the son of Bethuel:

2 Hear this, O you elders, and give ear, all you inhabitants of the land! Has such a calamity ever happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers?

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

4 What the palmerworm has left, the locust has eaten; and what the swarming locust has left, the crawling locust has eaten; and what the crawling locust has left, the cankerworm has eaten.

5 Awake, O you drunkards, and weep; and howl, all you drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.

6 A nation has come up against my land, strong, and without number; whose teeth are like the teeth of a lion, and his fangs as the fangs of a lion's whelp.

7 He has laid my vine waste, and has cut off my fig tree and thrown it away; the branches thereof 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 the LORD; the kings mourn, and the priests who minister to the LORD mourn.

10 The field is plundered, the land mourns; for the wheat is plundered, the new wine is dried up, the olive orchards are destroyed.

11 Be ashamed, O you husbandmen; howl, O you vinedressers, howl for the wheat and for the barley because the harvest of the fields is perished.

12 The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languishes; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree, and the apple tree, all the trees of the field are withered; joy is fled from the sons of men.

13 Gird yourselves with sackcloth and lament, O you priests; howl, O you ministers of the altar; go in, spend the night in sackcloth, O you ministers of my God, because 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 elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the LORD your God, and cry to the LORD your God, and say,

15 Alas, alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand, and as plunder from God shall it come.

16 And, behold, before our eyes the food is cut off from the house of our God, and gladness and joy have ceased.

17 The cows languish at their mangers, the granaries are laid waste, the winepresses are thrown down, and the grain is dried up.

18 How the beasts groan! the herds of cattle cry because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep also are perished.

19 O LORD, to thee will I cry; for the fire has devoured the camps of shepherds in the wilderness, and the flame has burned all the trees of the field.

20 Also the beasts of the field cry out to thee because the ponds of water are dried up, and the fire has devoured the camps of shepherds in the wilderness.