Joel 1:2-12
Legacy Standard Bible
2 (A)Hear this, O (B)elders,
And give ear, all inhabitants of the land.
(C)Has anything like this happened in your days
Or in your fathers’ days?
3 (D)Recount about it to your sons,
And let your sons recount about it to their sons,
And their sons to the next generation.
4 What the (E)gnawing locust has left, the swarming locust has consumed;
And what the (F)swarming locust has left, the creeping locust has consumed;
And what the creeping locust has left, the (G)stripping locust has consumed.
5 Awake, (H)drunkards, and weep;
And wail, all you wine drinkers,
On account of the sweet wine
That is (I)cut off from your mouth.
6 For a (J)nation has come up against my land,
Mighty and without number;
(K)Its teeth are the teeth of a lion,
And it has the fangs of a lioness.
7 It has (L)made my vine a desolation
And my fig tree [a]splinters.
It has stripped them bare and cast them away;
Their branches have become white.
8 (M)Wail like a virgin (N)girded with sackcloth
For the bridegroom of her youth.
9 The (O)grain offering and the drink offering are cut off
From the house of Yahweh.
The (P)priests mourn,
The ministers of Yahweh.
10 The field is (Q)destroyed;
(R)The land mourns,
For the grain is destroyed,
The new wine dries up,
Fresh oil [b]fails.
11 [c](S)Be ashamed, O farmers,
Wail, O vinedressers,
For the wheat and the barley,
Because the (T)harvest of the field perishes.
12 The (U)vine dries up,
And the fig tree [d]fails;
The (V)pomegranate, the (W)palm also, and the [e](X)apple tree,
All the trees of the field dry up.
Indeed, (Y)rejoicing dries up
From the sons of men.
Joel 1:2-12
New Living Translation
Mourning over the Locust Plague
2 Hear this, you leaders of the people.
Listen, all who live in the land.
In all your history,
has anything like this happened before?
3 Tell your children about it in the years to come,
and let your children tell their children.
Pass the story down from generation to generation.
4 After the cutting locusts finished eating the crops,
the swarming locusts took what was left!
After them came the hopping locusts,
and then the stripping locusts,[a] too!
5 Wake up, you drunkards, and weep!
Wail, all you wine-drinkers!
All the grapes are ruined,
and all your sweet wine is gone.
6 A vast army of locusts[b] has invaded my land,
a terrible army too numerous to count.
Its teeth are like lions’ teeth,
its fangs like those of a lioness.
7 It has destroyed my grapevines
and ruined my fig trees,
stripping their bark and destroying it,
leaving the branches white and bare.
8 Weep like a bride dressed in black,
mourning the death of her husband.
9 For there is no grain or wine
to offer at the Temple of the Lord.
So the priests are in mourning.
The ministers of the Lord are weeping.
10 The fields are ruined,
the land is stripped bare.
The grain is destroyed,
the grapes have shriveled,
and the olive oil is gone.
11 Despair, all you farmers!
Wail, all you vine growers!
Weep, because the wheat and barley—
all the crops of the field—are ruined.
12 The grapevines have dried up,
and the fig trees have withered.
The pomegranate trees, palm trees, and apple trees—
all the fruit trees—have dried up.
And the people’s joy has dried up with them.
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