The word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel:

An Invasion of Locusts

(A)Hear this, (B)you elders;
    give ear, (C)all inhabitants of the land!
(D)Has such a thing happened in your days,
    or in the days of your fathers?
(E)Tell your children of it,
    and let your children tell their children,
    and their children to another generation.

What (F)the cutting locust left,
    (G)the swarming locust has eaten.
What the swarming locust left,
    (H)the hopping locust has eaten,
and what the hopping locust left,
    (I)the destroying locust has eaten.

Awake, you drunkards, and weep,
    and (J)wail, all you drinkers of wine,
because of (K)the sweet wine,
    for it is cut off from your mouth.
For (L)a nation has come up against my land,
    (M)powerful and beyond number;
(N)its teeth are lions' teeth,
    and it has the fangs of a lioness.
It has laid waste my vine
    and splintered my (O)fig tree;
it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down;
    their branches are made white.

Lament like a virgin[a] (P)wearing sackcloth
    for the bridegroom of her youth.
(Q)The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off
    from the house of the Lord.
(R)The priests mourn,
    (S)the ministers of the Lord.
10 The fields are destroyed,
    (T)the ground mourns,
because (U)the grain is destroyed,
    (V)the wine dries up,
    the oil languishes.

11 (W)Be ashamed,[b] O tillers of the soil;
    wail, O vinedressers,
for the wheat and the barley,
    (X)because the harvest of the field has perished.
12 The vine dries up;
    (Y)the fig tree languishes.
Pomegranate, palm, and apple,
    all the trees of the field are dried up,
and (Z)gladness dries up
    from the children of man.

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Footnotes

  1. Joel 1:8 Or young woman
  2. Joel 1:11 The Hebrew words for dry up and be ashamed in verses 10–12, 17 sound alike

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