Joel 1
Living Bible
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.
Joel 1
King James Version
1 The word of the Lord that came to Joel the son of Pethuel.
2 Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?
3 Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.
4 That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten.
5 Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.
6 For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth of a great lion.
7 He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white.
8 Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.
9 The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the Lord; the priests, the Lord's ministers, mourn.
10 The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth.
11 Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen; howl, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished.
12 The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languisheth; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all the trees of the field, are withered: because joy is withered away from the sons of men.
13 Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: howl, ye ministers of the altar: come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: for the meat offering and the drink offering is withholden from the house of your God.
14 Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the Lord your God, and cry unto the Lord,
15 Alas for the day! for the day of the Lord is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.
16 Is not the meat cut off before our eyes, yea, joy and gladness from the house of our God?
17 The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered.
18 How do the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.
19 O Lord, to thee will I cry: for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned all the trees of the field.
20 The beasts of the field cry also unto thee: for the rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.