Joel 1:13-20

The Voice

¹³ You priests, throw off your fine robes. Dress in sackcloth and grieve.
    Wail, you servants at the altar.
Come into the temple and spend all night in your sackcloth,
    you ministers of my God,
Because no one brings grain and wine
    to offer at your God’s house these days.
¹⁴ So consecrate a holy fast; call everyone together.
    Gather all the elders and leaders and the rest who live in the land.
Call everyone to the temple of your God, the Eternal.
    Then cry out to Him with all your heart.

¹⁵ But look! It is coming!
    The day of the Eternal One is near.
Destruction, not salvation,
    will be the sentence from the Highest God.
¹⁶ Hasn’t all our food been destroyed right before our eyes?
Haven’t joyful celebrations ceased in God’s house?

¹⁷ The seeds the farmers planted have shriveled beneath the ground;^[a]
    all the storehouses are empty; their supplies are gone.
The barns are breaking down
    because there is no more grain to fill them.
¹⁸ Now even the beasts groan!
    Herds of cattle wander, confused and agitated,
For they have no more pasture to feed in.
    Flocks of sheep suffer this ordeal too.

¹⁹ I cry out to you, O Eternal One,
    along with everyone else.
For the fire of Your wrath has consumed
    the open pastures,
And flames have scorched
    all the trees in the field.
²⁰ Even the wild beasts call to You:
    they are dying of thirst—the streams have dried up;
They are dying of hunger—the fire of Your wrath has consumed open pastures.