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 palmer worm 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 caterpillar 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 has 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.