Joel 1:2-12
International Standard Version
2 “Hear this, you elders!
Listen, all of you residents of the land!
Has there ever been anything like this during your lifetime,[a]
or even when your ancestors were alive?[b]
3 Pass it on to your children,
and from[c] your children to their children,
and from[d] their children to the following generation.
4 Whatever the devouring locust left behind
the locust swarm has consumed!
Whatever the locust swarm has left behind,
the young locust[e] has consumed!
Whatever the young locust[f] has left behind,
the ravaging locust has consumed!”
A Call to Mourning
5 “Wake up, you drunkards!
Cry aloud and howl, you wine drinkers,
because your supply of new wine has been snatched from you.[g]
6 Indeed, a nation has invaded my land—
it is strong and its population is too large to count[h]—
with teeth like a lion
and fangs[i] like a lioness.
7 That nation[j] laid waste my vines,
and stripped bare my fig tree,
discarding it.
It stripped off[k] its bark.
8 “Grieve like a virgin,
who, dressed in her mourner’s clothes,[l]
cries out in memory[m] of the man she was going to marry.[n]
9 Both grain offering and wine offering have been removed from the Lord’s Temple;[o]
the priests and ministering servants of the Lord are mourning.”
The Coming Famine
10 “The fields lie in ruins
and the ground is dried up.[p]
Indeed, the grain is ruined,
the new wine has evaporated,
and the olive oil has run out.
11 Be dismayed, you farmers!
Cry aloud, you vintners,
for the wheat and barley,
because the harvest in your fields has been lost.
12 The grapevine is shriveled
and the fig tree is withered,
along with the pomegranate tree, the palm tree, the apple tree
and all of the cultivated trees.[q]
Truly, joy has evaporated from Adam’s children.”[r]
Footnotes
- Joel 1:2 Lit. this in your days
- Joel 1:2 Lit. even in the days of your ancestors
- Joel 1:3 The Heb. lacks from
- Joel 1:3 The Heb. lacks from
- Joel 1:4 Or caterpillar
- Joel 1:4 Or caterpillar
- Joel 1:5 Lit. from your lips
- Joel 1:6 Lit. and innumerable
- Joel 1:6 Or jaws
- Joel 1:7 Lit. It
- Joel 1:7 Lit. made white
- Joel 1:8 Or in sackcloth
- Joel 1:8 The Heb. lacks in memory
- Joel 1:8 Lit. the husband of her youth
- Joel 1:9 Or house; and so throughout the book
- Joel 1:10 Or ground mourns
- Joel 1:12 Lit. the trees of the field
- Joel 1:12 Lit. from sons of mankind
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