Joel 1:2-12
Modern English Version
A Land Laid Waste
2 Hear this, elders,
and give ear, all inhabitants of the land!
Has anything like this happened in your days,
or in the days of your fathers?
3 Tell it to your children,
and let your children tell their children,
and let their children tell another generation.
4 What the fledging locust left,
the adult locust has eaten;
what the adult locust left,
the larval locust has eaten;
what the larval locust left,
the hopper locust has eaten.
5 Awaken, drunkards, and weep!
Wail, all wine-drinkers,
because the sweet wine
has been cut off from your lips.
6 For a nation powerful and innumerable
has invaded my land;
its teeth are like the teeth of a lion,
like the fangs of a lioness.
7 It has despoiled my vine,
and splintered my fig tree;
it has stripped off its bark
and cast it away,
leaving its branches white.
8 Lament like a virgin wearing sackcloth
for the husband of her youth.
9 The grain offering and the drink offering
are cut off from the house of the Lord;
the priests mourn, who are
ministers to the Lord.
10 The field is ravaged,
the ground mourns;
for the grain is ruined,
the new wine is dried up,
and the oil dwindles.
11 Despair, fieldworkers;
wail, vinedressers,
for the wheat and the barley,
because the harvest of the field has perished.
12 The vine is dried up,
and the fig tree is withered;
pomegranate, palm, and apple—
all the trees of the field are dry;
surely joy has withered away
from the sons of men.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.