² Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or 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 ^[a]the palmer-worm hath left hath ^[b]the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath ^[c]the canker-worm eaten; and that which the canker-worm hath left hath ^[d]the caterpillar eaten.

⁵ Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and wail, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine; for it is cut off from your mouth. ⁶ For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number; his teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the jaw-teeth of a lioness. ⁷ He hath laid my vine waste, and ^[e]barked my fig-tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast it ^[f]away; the branches thereof are made white.

⁸ Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. ⁹ The meal-offering and the drink-offering are cut off from the house of Jehovah; the priests, Jehovah’s ministers, mourn. ¹⁰ The field is laid waste, the land mourneth; for the grain is destroyed, the new wine is ^[g]dried up, the oil languisheth. ^11 [h]Be confounded, O ye husbandmen, wail, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field is perished. ¹² The vine is ^[i]withered, 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: for joy is ^[j]withered away from the sons of men.