1 This message came from the Lord to Joel, son of Pethuel:

² Listen, you aged men of Israel! Everyone, listen! In all your lifetime, yes, in all your history, have you ever heard of such a thing as I am going to tell you? ³ In years to come, tell your children about it; pass the awful story down from generation to generation. ⁴ After the cutter-locusts finish eating your crops, the swarmer-locusts will take what’s left! After them will come the hopper-locusts! And then the stripper-locusts too!

⁵ Wake up and weep, you drunkards, for all the grapes are ruined, and all your wine is gone! ⁶ A vast army of locusts^[a] covers the land. It is a terrible army too numerous to count, with teeth as sharp as those of lions! ⁷ They have ruined my vines and stripped the bark from the fig trees, leaving trunks and branches white and bare.

⁸ Weep with sorrow, as a virgin weeps whose fiancé is dead. ⁹ Gone are the offerings of grain and wine to bring to the Temple of the Lord; the priests are starving. Hear the crying of these ministers of God. ¹⁰ The fields are bare of crops. Sorrow and sadness are everywhere. The grain, the grapes, the olive oil are gone.

¹¹ Well may you farmers stand so shocked and stricken; well may you vinedressers weep. Weep for the wheat and the barley, too, for they are gone. ¹² The grapevines are dead; the fig trees are dying; the pomegranates wither; the apples shrivel on the trees; all joy has withered with them.

¹³ O priests, robe yourselves in sackcloth. O ministers of my God, lie all night before the altar, weeping. For there are no more offerings of grain and wine for you. ¹⁴ Announce a fast; call a solemn meeting. Gather the elders and all the people into the Temple of the Lord your God, and weep before him there.

¹⁵ Alas, this terrible day of punishment^[b] is on the way. Destruction from the Almighty is almost here! ¹⁶ Our food will disappear before our eyes; all joy and gladness will be ended in the Temple of our God. ¹⁷ The seed rots in the ground; the barns and granaries are empty; the grain has dried up in the fields. ¹⁸ The cattle groan with hunger; the herds stand perplexed, for there is no pasture for them; the sheep bleat in misery.

¹⁹ Lord, help us! For the heat has withered the pastures and burned up all the trees. ²⁰ Even the wild animals cry to you for help, for there is no water for them. The creeks are dry, and the pastures are scorched.