Joel
Chapter 1
1 God’s message that came to Joel, Pethuel’s son.
2 Listen, old men, and all who live in the land, pay attention. Has anything like this happened in your time or in your ancestors’ time?
3 Tell your children about it, let them tell their children, and those children tell the next generation.
4 What the palmerworm did not eat, the locust did; and what the locust did not eat, the cankerworm did; and what the cankerworm did not eat, the caterpillar did.
5 Wake up, you who drink too much, and cry; scream, all of you wine lovers, because the fresh wine is taken away from your lips.
6 A nation has invaded my land, powerful and countless, with teeth like a lion’s, and with the fangs of a mighty lion.
7 He has destroyed my vine and stripped my fig tree. He has completely bared it and thrown it aside; its branches are now white.
8 Mourn like a young woman wrapped in rough cloth for the husband of her young days.
9 The food offering and the drink offering are stopped at God’s house; the priests, God’s servants, are sad.
10 The crops are gone, the earth is sad; the grain is ruined, the new wine is gone, the oil is failing.
11 Feel ashamed, you farmers; cry out, you vine growers, because the wheat and barley are ruined; the field crops are destroyed.
12 The grapevine has dried up, and the fig tree is weak; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree, and the apple tree, all the trees in the fields have dried up because happiness has faded away from people.
13 Get ready and cry, priests; wail, servants of the altar; come, spend the night in mourning, servants of my God, because the grain and drink offerings are no longer brought to your God’s temple.
14 Set a special time to fast, call a serious meeting, bring together the leaders and everyone who lives in the land to God’s house, and pray to God.
15 Oh no, the day is coming! It’s the day of God, and it will bring destruction like a disaster from the powerful one.
16 Isn’t the food taken away from us, along with joy and happiness from God’s house?
17 The seeds have rotted under the dirt, the storehouses are empty, the barns are ruined; because the grain has dried up.
18 The animals cry out in pain! The herds of cows are confused because there is no grass to eat; even the sheep are left with nothing.
19 God, I will call out to you: because the fire has eaten up the wild land’s grass, and the flame has burned every tree in the fields.
20 The wild animals cry out to you because the water streams are dry, and fire has burned the wild grasslands.