Joel 1:1-15

English Standard Version

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

An Invasion of Locusts

²^(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?
³^(E)Tell your children of it,
    and let your children tell their children,
    and their children to another generation.

⁴What ^(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.

⁵Awake, 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.
⁶For ^(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.
⁷It 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.

⁸Lament like a virgin^[a] ^(P)wearing sackcloth
    for the bridegroom of her youth.
⁹^(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.
¹⁰The 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.
¹²The 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.

A Call to Repentance

¹³^(AA)Put on sackcloth and lament, ^(AB)O priests;
    ^(AC)wail, O ministers of the altar.
Go in, ^(AD)pass the night in sackcloth,
    ^(AE)O ministers of my God!
^(AF)Because grain offering and drink offering
    are withheld from the house of your God.

¹⁴^(AG)Consecrate a fast;
    ^(AH)call a solemn assembly.
Gather ^(AI)the elders
    and ^(AJ)all the inhabitants of the land
to the house of the Lord your God,
    and cry out to the Lord.

¹⁵Alas for the day!
^(AK)For the day of the Lord is near,
and as destruction from the Almighty^[c] it comes.

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Footnotes

Joel 1:8 Or young woman
Joel 1:11 The Hebrew words for dry up and be ashamed in verses 10–12, 17 sound alike
Joel 1:15 Destruction sounds like the Hebrew for Almighty

Joel 2:1-3

English Standard Version

The Day of the Lord

2 ^(A)Blow a trumpet in ^(B)Zion;
    sound an alarm on ^(C)my holy mountain!
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,
    for ^(D)the day of the Lord is coming; it is near,
²^(E)a day of darkness and gloom,
    ^(F)a day of clouds and thick darkness!
Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains
    ^(G)a great and powerful people;
^(H)their like has never been before,
    nor will be again after them
    through the years of all generations.

³^(I)Fire devours before them,
    and behind them a flame burns.
The land is like ^(J)the garden of Eden before them,
    but ^(K)behind them a desolate wilderness,
    and nothing escapes them.

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Joel 2:28-32

English Standard Version

The Lord Will Pour Out His Spirit

²⁸^[a] ^(A)“And it shall come to pass afterward,
    that ^(B)I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;
^(C)your sons and ^(D)your daughters shall prophesy,
    your old men shall dream dreams,
    and your young men shall see visions.
²⁹^(E)Even on the male and female servants
    in those days I will pour out my Spirit.

³⁰“And I will show ^(F)wonders in the heavens and ^(G)on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. ³¹^(H)The sun shall be turned to darkness, ^(I)and the moon to blood, ^(J)before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. ³²And it shall come to pass that ^(K)everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. ^(L)For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among ^(M)the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.