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.
Joel 1:2-12
Christian Standard Bible
A Plague of Locusts
2 Hear this,(A) you elders;
listen, all you inhabitants of the land.
Has anything like this ever happened in your days(B)
or in the days of your ancestors?
3 Tell your children about it,(C)
and let your children tell their children,
and their children the next generation.
4 What the devouring locust(D) has left,
the swarming locust has eaten;
what the swarming locust has left,
the young locust(E) has eaten;
and what the young locust has left,
the destroying locust(F) has eaten.
5 Wake up, you drunkards,(G) and weep;
wail, all you wine drinkers,
because of the sweet wine,
for it has been taken from your mouth.
6 For a nation has invaded my land,(H)
powerful and without number;
its teeth are the teeth of a lion,
and it has the fangs of a lioness.(I)
7 It has devastated my grapevine
and splintered my fig tree.
It has stripped off its bark and thrown it away;
its branches have turned white.
8 Grieve like a young woman dressed in sackcloth,(J)
mourning for the husband of her youth.
9 Grain and drink offerings have been cut off(K)
from the house of the Lord;
the priests, who are ministers of the Lord, mourn.(L)
10 The fields are destroyed;(M)
the land grieves;
indeed, the grain is destroyed;
the new wine is dried up;(N)
and the fresh oil fails.(O)
11 Be ashamed, you farmers,(P)
wail, you vinedressers,[a]
over the wheat and the barley,
because the harvest of the field has perished.(Q)
12 The grapevine is dried up,(R)
and the fig tree is withered;
the pomegranate,(S) the date palm,(T) and the apple(U)—
all the trees of the orchard—have withered.
Indeed, human joy has dried up.(V)
Footnotes
- 1:11 Or The farmers are dismayed, the vinedressers wail
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
The Christian Standard Bible. Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible®, and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers, all rights reserved.