Joel 1:2-12
Lexham English Bible
A Lament Over the Land
2 Hear this, O elders,
and give ear, all the inhabitants of the land.
Has this happened in your days?
Or the days of your ancestors?
3 Tell it to your children,
and your children to their children,
and their children to the following generation.
4 What the cutting locust left,
the swarming locust has eaten.
What the swarming locust left,
the hopping locust has eaten.
And what the hopping locust left,
the destroying locust has eaten.
5 Wake up, drunkards, and weep!
Wail, all drinkers of wine, over the new wine,
for it is cut off from your mouth.
6 Because a nation has invaded[a] my land,
strong and beyond counting.[b]
Its teeth are the teeth of a lion,
and its fangs are those of a lioness.
7 It has made my vine a desolation,
and my fig tree a completely splintered stump.
It has stripped them bare and thrown them down;
their branches have turned white.
8 Lament like a virgin girded in sackcloth
for the husband of her youth.
9 The offering and libation are withheld
from the house[c] of Yahweh.
The priests mourn,
the ministers of Yahweh.
10 The field is destroyed;
the earth mourns
because the grain is destroyed,
the new wine dries up,
the olive oil languishes.
11 Be ashamed, farmers;
Wail, vinedressers,
over the wheat and over the barley,
because the harvest of the field is ruined.
12 The vine withers
and the fig tree droops.
The pomegranate tree, and also the palm tree, the apple tree
—all the trees of the field—are dried up.
Indeed, joy is dried up
among the sons of men.
Joel 1:2-12
Common English Bible
2 Hear this, elders;
pay attention, everyone in the land!
Has anything like this ever happened in your days,
or in the days of your ancestors?[a]
3 Tell it to your children,
and have your children tell their children,
and their children tell their children.
4 What the cutting locust left,
the swarming locust has eaten.
What the swarming locust left,
the hopping locust has eaten.
And what the hopping locust left,
the devouring locust has eaten.[b]
5 Wake up, you who drink too much, and weep.
Scream over the sweet wine,
all you wine drinkers,
because it is snatched from your mouth;
6 because a nation, powerful and beyond number,
has invaded my land.
Its teeth are like lions’ teeth;
its fangs are like those of a lioness.
7 It has destroyed my vines,
splintered my fig trees,
stripped off their bark and thrown it down;
their branches have turned white.
8 Lament like a woman dressed in funeral clothing,
one who has lost the husband of her youth.
9 The grain offering and the drink offering are gone from the Lord’s temple.
The priests and the Lord’s ministers mourn.
10 The fields are devastated,
the ground mourns;
for the grain is destroyed,
the new wine dries up,
the olive oil fails.
11 Be shocked, you farmers;
howl, you vinedressers,
over the wheat and the barley,
for the crops of the field are destroyed.
12 The grapevine is dried up;
the fig tree withers.
Pomegranate, palm, and apple—
all the trees of the field are dried up.
Joy fades away from the people.[c]
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