² “Hear this, you leaders!
Listen, all who live in the land!
Has anything like this ever happened in your days,
or in your ancestors’ days?
³ Tell your children about it,
and have them tell it to theirs,
and have them tell the next generation.
⁴ What the cutter-worms left, the locusts ate;
what the locusts left, the grasshoppers ate;
what the grasshoppers left, the shearer-worms ate.
⁵ Wake up, drunkards, and weep!
wail, all you who drink wine,
because the juice of the grape
will be withheld from your mouth.
⁶ For a mighty and numberless nation
has invaded my land.
His teeth are lion’s teeth;
his fangs are those of a lioness.
⁷ He has reduced my vines to waste,
my fig trees to splinters —
he plucked them bare, stripped their bark
and left their branches white.”

⁸ Lament like a virgin wearing sackcloth
for the husband of her youth!
⁹ Grain offering and drink offering are cut off
from the house of Adonai.
The cohanim are mourning,
those who are serving Adonai.
¹⁰ The fields are ruined, the ground is grieving;
for the grain is ruined, the new wine dried up,
and the olive oil is wretched.
¹¹ Despair, you farmers; lament, vinedressers,
over the wheat and the barley —
the harvest from the fields is lost.
¹² The vines have withered, the fig trees wilted,
also the pomegranate, date-palm and apple tree —
all the trees in the fields have withered,
and the people’s joy has withered away.
¹³ Cohanim, put on sackcloth, and weep!
Wail, you who serve at the altar!
Come, lie in sackcloth all night long,
you who serve my God!
For the grain offering and drink offering are withheld
from the house of your God.
¹⁴ Proclaim a holy fast,
call for a solemn assembly,
gather the leaders
and all who live in the land
to the house of Adonai your God,
and cry out to Adonai,

¹⁵ “Oh no! The Day!
The Day of Adonai is upon us!
As destruction from Shaddai
it is coming!
¹⁶ The food is cut off before our very eyes,
also joy and gladness from the house of our God.
¹⁷ The seed-grain is rotting in its furrows;
the granaries are deserted, the barns in ruins;
because the grain has withered.
¹⁸ How the animals groan!
The herds of cattle are perplexed,
because they have no pasture.
The flocks of sheep bear the punishment, too.
¹⁹ Adonai, I cry out to you!
For the fire has consumed the pastures in the desert,
and the flame set ablaze all the trees in the fields.
²⁰ Even the wild animals
come to you, panting,
because the streambeds have dried up,
and fire has consumed the pastures in the desert.”

2 “Blow the shofar in Tziyon!
Sound an alarm on my holy mountain!”
Let all living in the land tremble,
for the Day of Adonai is coming! It’s upon us! —
² a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and thick fog;
a great and mighty horde is spreading
like blackness over the mountains.
There has never been anything like it,
nor will there ever be again,
not even after the years
of many generations.
³ Ahead of them a fire devours,
behind them a flame consumes;
ahead the land is like Gan-‘Eden,
behind them a desert waste.
From them there is no escape.
⁴ They look like horses,
and like cavalry they charge.
⁵ With a rumble like that of chariots
they leap over the mountaintops,
like crackling flames devouring stubble,
like a mighty horde in battle array.
⁶ At their presence the peoples writhe in anguish,
every face is drained of color.
⁷ Like warriors they charge,
they scale the wall like soldiers.
Each one keeps to his own course,
without getting in the other’s way.
⁸ They don’t jostle each other,
but stay on their own paths;
they burst through defenses unharmed,
without even breaking rank.
⁹ They rush into the city,
they run along the wall,
they climb up into the houses,
entering like a thief through the windows.
¹⁰ At their advance the earth quakes,
and the sky shakes,
the sun and moon turn black,
and the stars stop shining.
¹¹ Adonai shouts orders to his forces —
his army is immense, mighty,
and it does what he says.
For great is the Day of Adonai, fearsome,
terrifying! Who can endure it?

¹² “Yet even now,” says Adonai,
“turn to me with all your heart,
with fasting, weeping and lamenting.”
¹³ Tear your heart, not your garments;
and turn to Adonai your God.
For he is merciful and compassionate,
slow to anger, rich in grace,
and willing to change his mind about disaster.
¹⁴ Who knows? He may turn, change his mind
and leave a blessing behind him,
[enough for] grain offerings and drink offerings
to present to Adonai your God.

¹⁵ “Blow the shofar in Tziyon!
Proclaim a holy fast,
call for a solemn assembly.”

¹⁶ Gather the people; consecrate the congregation;
assemble the leaders; gather the children,
even infants sucking at the breast;
let the bridegroom leave his room
and the bride the bridal chamber.
¹⁷ Let the cohanim, who serve Adonai,
stand weeping between the vestibule and the altar.
Let them say, “Spare your people, Adonai!
Don’t expose your heritage to mockery,
or make them a byward among the Goyim.
Why should the peoples say, ‘Where is their God?’”

¹⁸ Then Adonai will become jealous for his land
and have pity on his people.
¹⁹ Here is how Adonai will answer his people:
“I will send you grain, wine and olive oil,
enough to satisfy you;
and no longer will I make you
a mockery among the Goyim.
²⁰ No, I will take the northerner away,
far away from you,
and drive him to a land
that is waste and barren;
with his vanguard toward the eastern sea
and his rearguard toward the western sea,
his stench and his rottenness will rise,
because he has done great things.”

²¹ Don’t fear, O soil; be glad! rejoice!
for Adonai has done great things.
²² Don’t be afraid, wild animals;
for the desert pastures are green,
the trees are putting out their fruit,
the fig tree and vine are giving full yield.
²³ Be glad, people of Tziyon!
rejoice in Adonai your God!
For he is giving you
the right amount of rain in the fall,
he makes the rain come down for you,
the fall and spring rains — this is what he does first.
²⁴ Then the floors will be full of grain
and the vats overflow with wine and olive oil.

²⁵ “I will restore to you the years that the locusts ate,
the grasshoppers, shearer-worms and cutter-worms,
my great army that I sent against you.
²⁶ You will eat until you are satisfied
and will praise the name of Adonai your God,
who has done with you such wonders.
Then my people will never again be shamed.
²⁷ You will know that I am with Isra’el
and that I am Adonai your God,
and that there is no other.
Then my people will never again be shamed.

3 ^(2:28) “After this, I will pour out
my Spirit on all humanity.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions;
^2 (2:29) and also on male and female slaves
in those days I will pour out my Spirit.
^3 (2:30) I will show wonders in the sky and on earth —
blood, fire and columns of smoke.
^4 (2:31) The sun will be turned into darkness
and the moon into blood
before the coming of the great
and terrible Day of Adonai.”

^5 (2:32) At that time, whoever calls
on the name of Adonai will be saved.
For in Mount Tziyon and Yerushalayim
there will be those who escape,
as Adonai has promised;
among the survivors will be those
whom Adonai has called.